GM Loans Paid in Full; Invests in Next Chevrolet Malibu
By Michelle Krebs April 21, 2010
General Motors confirmed Wednesday it has paid back in full the $8.4 billion in loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments..
GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre also announced the automaker will invest $257 million in the next-generation Chevrolet Malibu.
Whitacre made both announcements at GM's plant in Fairfax, Kansas, which will be the primary source of future Malibu models. The plant will receive $136 million of the total Malibu investment to prepare for the next-generation Malibu. The plant already builds the Malibu as well as the Buick LaCrosse.
GM's Detroit Hamtramck plant, which assembles the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS and will produce the upcoming Chevrolet Volt, will receive $100 million in investment to add Malibu production that may be needed during "peak demands" for the midsize sedan, Whitacre said.
"And we hope we have a lot of those peaks," he added. -- Michelle Krebs, Senior Analyst and Editor at Large
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Click here to comment on this entry.This story makes little sense without all the details. GM has not paid back all the loans - the 8.4 billion is just 13% of the total. Yes, it's still progress, but there is still much more to go. Why have the various media sources misreported this event?? It's like they're purposely trying to mislead the readers.
cwc1 - not biased reporting just accurate. GM has paid the loan back. The remaining money that the Government gave to GM was converted into stock. Therefore we own part of GM. We can sell those shares as the company's value increase.
Seems like the bail-out worked. Lets rejoice rather than compoain and be bitter little tea-party members.
As an American taxpayer, my equal share of GM works out to about $317.64 (54 billion divided amongst 170 million taxpayers).
When, if ever, GM announces an IPO, we will probably be dismayed at how short of the current outstanding debt they are really worth.
That difference ought to be converted back into a loan to be paid in full.
I had been overall supportive of GM, while acknowledging their mistakes and the hostile UAW climate they've had to deal with. I still wanted them to succeed and didn't want them to go bankrupt. But bailing out was the exact wrong thing to do, because it has essentially led to a takeover. They should have been allowed to go through bankruptcy for reorganization or even liquidation withouth the government's heavy hand. They've sold their soul and may never get it back.
Washington bureaucrats, blowhards in Congress, and the Executive Branch own GM (61%) because they control them. They've conned taxpayers into thinking they own GM because their confiscated dollars were used to bail them out. But we don't own them - we sure won't get money back if/when they ever pay back the equity through an IPO. Our dollars will be worth even less by then as a result of massive currency devaluation from irresponsible federal monetary policies.
cwc - you say we won`t get our money back, pretty categorical. Lets look at facts, out of the bail outs to financial companies alot has already been paid back with interest. With regards GM nearly $60billion was spent, $8 billion is back, so that is a solid start in less than 9 months.
Lets give it a while.
Don`t imagine that if we hadn`t bailed them out that the taxpayer would pay nothing - there would be lost taxes, unemployment benefit etc.
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