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GM Fairfax assembly plant in Kansas City - Source: Reuters -
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General Motors Co has posted a third-quarter operating loss but says stabilising sales and lower costs since its July bankruptcy would allow it to begin paying down $US6.7 billion in US government debt ahead of schedule.
The automaker will begin making $US1 billion quarterly instalment payments on its US government loan in December.
At the same time, the automaker will start repaying a $US1.4 billion loan to Canada, making a payment of almost $US200 million.
GM had not been required to make any payments on the US loan
before it matured in July 2015.
For the third quarter, GM posted a loss of $US888 million before
special items, interest payments and taxes.
GM, which slashed almost 70% of its debt in a bankruptcy funded and directed by the US government, posted third-quarter sales of $US28.0 billion in preliminary financial results released on Monday.
The sales results were down 26% from a year earlier but up 21% from the second quarter when the automaker was struggling to conserve in the run-up to its June bankruptcy filing.
The financial results were not prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles and were not directly comparable to past results for the automaker, which has lost $US88 billion since 2005.
The US government extended almost $US50 billion in financing to
GM but agreed to convert most of that balance into a 61% equity
stake in the automaker.
A congressional oversight panel said the US government was unlikely
to recover all of the financing it provided GM.
The automaker ended the third quarter with $US42.6 billion in cash and $US17.4 billion in a special account created with the bankruptcy financing provided by the US government.
It said it had allocated $US8.1 billion from the bankruptcy escrow account to pay down the government debt.
