GM reports $1.15 billion loss in third quarter

Saying that he saw “signs of progress and signs of stability,” General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson announced on Monday that the nation’s largest automaker had lost $1.15 billion in the third quarter of the year. That amount was less than half the loss from the same quarter in 2008 and probably would have been better if the company had not spent the first week and a half of the quarter still mired in bankruptcy proceedings. Automotive News reports:

GM generated $3.3 billion in operating cash during the shortened third quarter, putting overall liquidity at $42.6 billion — “candidly, well in excess of what we would have thought,” Henderson said.

The better-than-expected results are allowing GM to start repaying its government debt next month while making plans to finish the task by the end of 2011. GM was not required to make any payments on the loans before they matured in July 2015.

The repayment, which could be completed as early as June 2010, will come from leftover funds set aside by the Obama administration to finance GM’s fast-track sale out of bankruptcy in July.

The automaker will begin quarterly loan payments in December by shelling out $1 billion to the U.S. government on the way to paying back $6.7 billion. At the same time, GM will start repaying a loan to Canada, worth $1.4 billion U.S., by paying back an initial $192 million.

Those loans are not the full amount owed to the federal government, however. The full debt to be repaid is about $30 billion, most of it secured by a 61 percent stake in the company. That debt cannot begin to be repaid until after GM goes public again, likely in June, 2010. It will then be paid back by slowly selling off the government’s equity share in stock and that is expected to take at least three years.