Inside these posts: Auto bailout

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GM to sell preferred shares of Ally for $1B

General Motors Co. says it will sell all of its shares of a certain type in Ally Financial Inc., its former finance arm, for $1 billion. The shares to be sold represent all of Ally’s Series A preferred stock outstanding, the automaker said Tuesday. Get the full story »

U.S. panel issues mixed final verdict on bailouts

The government’s bailout of banks, auto makers and insurers helped prevent a more severe economic crisis, but might have sowed the seeds of the next one, a congressional watchdog group said Wednesday in its final report.

The Congressional Oversight Panel said that the government’s rescue fund may have prevented an economic depression by sending billions of dollars to companies crippled in financial crisis that erupted in 2008. But little has been done to aid to homeowners facing foreclosure or others far from Wall Street, it said. Get the full story »

GM posts first full-year profit since 2004

General Motors Co. posted fourth-quarter earnings slightly above expectations and its first full-year profit since 2004. Profit for all of 2010 was $4.7 billion, achieved after the company slashed costs and debt in a 2009 bankruptcy financed by the Obama administration. Get the full story »

CEO: Chrysler must shed ’shyster’ bailout loans

Chrysler is working to refinance what its chief executive characterized as “shyster loans” that the Obama administration extended as part of a bailout to keep the automaker from collapse in 2009.

“I want to pay back the shyster loans,” Sergio Marchionne said at an industry conference, using a derogatory term for an unprincipled lawyer or politician. “Pay back the loans, get those out and then take (the company) public.”

Marchionne, who is also CEO of Italy’s Fiat SpA, has said repeatedly that the high interest rates on $5.7 billion that Chrysler owes to the U.S. Treasury have been an obstacle in the automaker’s return to profitability. Get the full story »

GM contributes $6B in stock to pension plans

General Motors Co. has completed the contribution of 60.6 million shares of its stock to its U.S. hourly and salaried pension plans, wrapping up the last part of its planned $6 billion in payment. Get the full story »

Fiat nears threshold to take 30% of Chrysler

Fiat has made fast progress toward clearing a second benchmark in restructuring Chrysler that could take its ownership in the U.S. automaker to 30 percent. Get the full story »

Treasury gets another $1.8 billion from GM stock

The Treasury Department has received an additional $1.8 billion in net proceeds from the sale of additional stock in General Motors. Get the full story »

Chrysler to invest $843M in Kokomo plants

Chrysler Group LLC said Tuesday it is looking to invest $843 million to improve its Kokomo, Indiana, plants to produce a new transmission and retain about 2,250 jobs.

Chrysler said the Kokomo improvements would push its total investment in U.S. facilities to nearly $3 billion since the automaker emerged from a government-funded bankruptcy under the management control of Italy’s Fiat SpA in June 2009. Get the full story »

GM readies market return after blockbuster IPO

General Motors Co. prepared for a dramatic return to the stock market on this morning with what is set to become the world’s largest share offering less than a year and a half after emerging from bankruptcy.

GM shares were set to begin trading on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges, capping the first stage of a turnaround that has taken the 102-year-old automaker from near-death in 2008, via a 2009 bailout, to unlikely Wall Street flotation favorite in 2010. Get the full story »

GM IPO raises $20.1 billion, biggest ever in U.S.

General Motors raised $20.1 billion in the biggest U.S. initial public offering in history, pricing the shares at the top of the proposed range in response to huge investor demand.

GM sold 478 common shares at $33 each, raising $15.77 billion, as well as $4.35 billion in preferred shares, more than the initially planned $4 billion. Get the full story »

GM IPO could raise $22.7B, most ever in U.S.

General Motors Co. Wednesday set the final terms for a landmark initial public offering that could raise up to $22.7 billion after a surge of investor interest in an automaker that had fallen from blue-chip status to government bailout.

At the high end of its price range, the IPO could be the largest ever in the United States — and a major first step toward break-even for a $50 billion U.S. government bailout of the 102-year-old company. GM plans to sell 478 million common shares for $32 to $33 each and $4 billion worth of preferred shares, according to an amended filing with U.S. securities regulators Wednesday. Get the full story »

China’s SAIC agrees to take 1% stake in GM IPO

China’s SAIC Motor Corp. Ltd has agreed to take a stake in General Motors Co if Chinese regulators approve a deal to deepen an existing alliance between the two automakers, four people familiar with the matter said.

The potential investment from SAIC is part of a surge in investor interest in GM that is expected to push the pricing of its shares to $29 or above in the the U.S. automaker’s initial public offering, one of the sources said. Get the full story »

As IPO approaches, GM posts $2 billion profit

General Motors posted a $2 billion third-quarter profit Wednesday, driven by an accelerating turnaround in North America as it rushes to complete an initial public offering of stock set for next week. The quarterly profit was the largest for GM since it emerged from bankruptcy in July 2009 and provides the last piece of financial data for investors evaluating the automaker’s $13 billion IPO.

GM said it expected to post solidly profitable results for 2010, its first full-year profit since 2004. Get the full story »

Chrysler fires 13 over report of beer drinking at lunch

Chrysler Group fired 13 workers at the same auto plant visited by President Barack Obama this summer after a local television station report showed some of them drinking on their lunch breaks.

Two other workers were also suspended for a month without pay, the automaker said.

Acting on a tip, a Detroit Fox News affiliate’s cameras and reporter captured workers from the Chrysler Jefferson North Assembly Plant guzzling beer and, in some cases, smoking what appeared to be hand-rolled cigarettes or other smoking material. Get the full story »

China state automaker may be eyeing GM stake

Chinese automaker and General Motors Co. partner SAIC said Monday it is paying close attention to GM’s upcoming stock sale, but gave no hint over whether it plans to take a stake itself.

GM executives in the U.S. and China likewise refused comment on reports that the automaker is in talks with its state-owned joint venture partner SAIC about buying a stake in the Detroit company through its initial public offering. Get the full story »