GM could turn profit this year
Associated Press
DETROIT
If the economy cooperates and auto sales recover a bit, General Motors Co. has a reasonable chance of turning a full-year profit in 2010, its new chief financial officer said Wednesday.
Former Microsoft Corp. CFO Chris Liddell, at his first meeting with reporters in Detroit, said the automaker is making money in Brazil and China, in the middle in North America and struggling in Europe.
“Relative to where we were a couple of years ago, that’s enormous progress,” he said in a conference room at GM’s downtown Detroit headquarters.
A full-year profit for GM, which left bankruptcy protection in July, would be the company’s first since 2004 when it made $2.7 billion. It has posted more than $88 billion in losses since then.
Liddell also said it’s possible that GM will sell shares to the public in the second half of 2010. But he wouldn’t set a timetable because GM must be making money, auto sales and the economy have to recover and the financial markets must be receptive.
GM also has to be selling its cars and trucks well within a recovering market, he said.
“It’s impossible to sit here in March and say when all those factors are going to come together,” Liddell said.
GM has received $52 billion in U.S. government aid, and Liddell said he would like to repay the $6.7 billion loan portion of the aid before June.
Liddell would not predict how much of the remainder would be repaid from the stock offering, but said it likely would take years for the government to divest itself of its 61 percent share of the automaker.
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