GM on Friday announced its preliminary second quarter financial results and, not surprisingly, they weren’t great. Including all one-time charges stemming from the American Axle strike, job cuts, plant closures, production cuts, and GMAC charges, the world’s largest automaker lost $4.4 billion in North America and $15.5 billion worldwide.
Broken down, the struggling automaker spent $3.3 billion on employee buyouts in North America and another $1.1 billion on restructuring North American plants and cutting their production capacity. GM had to contribute $1.3 billion to GMAC’s Q2 losses, of which it owns 49 percent. The bankruptcy restructuring proceedings at Delphi corporation, meantime, cost it another $2.8 billion. The American Axle fiasco took $197 million out of the automaker’s pocket during the second quarter, while payments to Canadian Auto Workers contracts ate up another $340 million for a total of nearly $9.1 billion in special, one-time costs.
The adjusted net loss for the quarter totaled $6.3 billion, which contrasts with a net income of $1.3 billion the automaker posted during the same time last year.
In markets other than North America, General Motors posted a gain of $400 million, bringing the total adjusted loss on automotive operations to $4 billion.
The automaker is taking steps, including $4-5 billion of U.S. credit lines and another $5 billion in asset sales and capital market activities, to raise cash flow it needs to keep operating through the end of 2009.
Recent reports have local Michigan politicians planning on lobbying the federal government to come to the aid of the struggling domestic automakers before it’s too late.
