DETROIT - General Motors Co.'s CEO said that the automaker has repaid the US$8.1 billion in loans it received from the U.S. and Canadian governments, a sign that a plan to rebuild the company is working.
GM got a total of $52 billion from the U.S. government and $9.5 billion from the Canadian and Ontario governments as it went through bankruptcy protection last year. The U.S. considered as a loan $6.7 billion of the aid, while the Canadian governments held $1.4 billion in loans.
The loan payback to the U.S. government comes five years ahead of schedule, and Whitacre said it is a sign GM is on its way toward reducing government ownership of the company.
GM still owes $45.3 billion to the U.S. and $8.1 billion to Canada. It plans to repay both with a public stock offering, perhaps later this year. The U.S. government owns 61 per cent of the company and Canada owns roughly 12 per cent.
"Nobody was happy that GM needed government loans -- not the governments, not the taxpayers and, quite frankly, not the company," Whitacre wrote in an op-ed article that appeared on the Wall Street Journal's website Tuesday night.
"We believe we can best thank the citizens of the U.S. and Canada by making sure that their investments are hard at work every day, building high quality, fuel-efficient vehicles."
Whitacre will make the announcement formally on Wednesday morning at the company's Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kansas, where he also will announce that GM will invest $257 million in that factory and one in Detroit that will build the next generation of the midsize Chevrolet Malibu.
He is scheduled to fly to Washington after the announcement, where he will meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers.
