WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., facing a potential June 1 bankruptcy without new debt cuts, is meeting this week and next with a team from the US Treasury to craft a revised plan to save the company.

The meetings are led for the Treasury by Harry Wilson, a former partner in Silver Point Capital LP, and about 14 other people including advisers from Boston Consulting Group and Rothschild Group, said Josh Earnest, a White House deputy press secretary. GM and the department's team will work to speed existing cuts and identify new savings, Earnest said yesterday.

"It underscores that they are trying to find an alternative to bankruptcy even if that's difficult to achieve," said John Casesa, managing partner of Casesa Shapiro Group in New York and former auto analyst at Merrill Lynch. "It's a sign of the sincerity of the process, at least."

GM chief executive officer Fritz Henderson, who took over last week after President Barack Obama asked Rick Wagoner to step down as CEO and chairman, has said he's racing to get an agreement with bondholders, unions and others to avoid a government-ordered bankruptcy. If he can't reach an accord, GM has said it will accept a US-led filing for court protection.

The Obama group also includes Xavier Mosquet, senior partner and managing director of Boston Consulting's Detroit office, and people from fields such as fashion who are studying alternative ways for GM to run its business, said a person briefed on the meetings. A Boston Consulting spokesman confirmed its role in the gatherings and wouldn't discuss details.

"GM and the task force remain engaged in discussions relative to GM's restructuring actions, but we won't comment on specific meetings or details of the ongoing discussions," said Renee Rashid-Merem, a spokeswoman for the Detroit-based company.

The Detroit News reported the meetings earlier yesterday.

GM fell 7 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $1.93 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have declined 40 percent this year.

Susan Docherty, GM vice president for Buick, Pontiac and GMC in North America, said in an interview at the New York auto show that executives at her level are getting "really good, thoughtful questions" daily from the Treasury team as they try to understand the company's operations.

The automaker also is speeding up preparations for a possible bankruptcy filing even as directors and executives try to avoid that, people familiar with the plans said two days ago.

GM would focus on forming a new company from its best assets if court protection is needed, the people said. Efforts to set a new cost-cut goal centre on how to go beyond a proposal to slash debt by 46 percent and shed 47,000 jobs in 2009, the people said.

The moves are a response to Obama's March 30 rejection of GM's plan for keeping $13.4 billion in federal loans. With bondholders and the United Auto Workers balking at concessions, a push for more savings makes bankruptcy more "probable", Henderson said.

GM's board met April 4 and April 5, and more discussions are planned inside the company and with the Obama administration after the biggest US automaker was given 60 days to revamp itself without a specific savings target, the people said. The meetings yesterday were part of those plans.