In December, we took a 20-percent equity stake in Fuji Heavy Industries and its Subaru brand. And, it's important to note that Fuji chose General Motors as its partner specifically because of our good track record with alliances. In March, we announced an agreement to take a 20-percent stake in Fiat Auto, a major industry player in Europe and Latin America. In the rapidly changing global automotive landscape, we believe this sets General Motors apart. As I noted before, at GM we are working to combine being fast with being big.
None is more important than embracing opportunities presented by the Internet.
And we are addressing e-business on all fronts. With this and other initiatives, our intent is to make GM the industry leader in Internet customer service. In February, less than four months after it was created and in response to strong input from our suppliers, we announced that TradeXchange would be merged with similar efforts at Ford and DaimlerChrysler to create the world's largest Internet-based virtual marketplace. The merged organization is now called Covisint. It will help us work with our suppliers to capture the full value of e-business applications to the benefit of our customers and shareholders, as soon as possible.