Reply #54: GM to Post Sixth Loss as Wagoner Slashes Costs, Revamps Models

[54anickel]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aJMD._jDuKHU&refer=us

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. is likely to report its sixth straight quarterly loss as Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner seeks to shore up finances at the world's largest automaker by closing plants and eliminating jobs.

GM tomorrow will announce a first-quarter loss of 48 cents a share, according to a report by JP Morgan Securities analyst Himanshu Patel, ranked by StarMine Corp. as among the most accurate on the company. A year earlier, GM had a loss of $839 million, or $1.48 a share, excluding what it calls special items.

Wagoner is hustling to recover from a $10.6 billion net loss in 2005 after Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. took away sales. Pension and health-care benefits are being reduced to help slash costs by $8 billion a year. He's relying on revamped models such as the Chevrolet Tahoe sport-utility vehicle after GM's share of the U.S. market slid to 26.2 percent last year, the lowest since 1925.

``Losses are slowing a bit, but it's very difficult for me to see any significant profitability for GM in less than four to five years,'' said Dan Genter, president of RNC Genter Capital Management in Los Angeles, whose $2 billion in assets include the automaker's bonds. ``There are too many legacy costs.''

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Demand for new models such as the redesigned 2007 Cadillac Escalade is better than expected, said Greg Anderson, sales manager at Case de Cadillac in Sherman Oaks, California.

``They were selling as soon as they hit the ground,'' Anderson said.

The dealership sold 45 last month, and the average price has risen to about $66,000, from $55,000 for the old model...

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