MichiganRadio

GM Will Pay Back Remaining Cash Loans This Month ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) - General Motors is expected to announce that it will pay back the remainder of six-point-seven billion dollars in U.S. and Canadian loans this month.

The automaker already made a payment of a billion dollars earlier this year.

GM CEO Ed Whitacre had said the automaker would pay the money back by June.

John Wolkonowitz is an auto analyst with I-H-S Global Insight.

He says the early payment is a sign that GM is selling enough cars to make it on its own.

And he says the news will help the Obama administration defend its bailout of GM.

"It saved a bunch of jobs and got an American institution back on its feet again," he says, explaining how the Obama administration is likely to parse the news, "And it will provide many jobs in the future and the American people are likely to get the rest of their money back one day."

The U.S. Treasury converted another 43-billion dollars of GM loans to stock.

But just how much of that money taxpayers will get back depends on the value of GM's stock.


Wolkonowitz says taxpayers could recoup virtually all their investment if the government waits until 2013 or 2014 to sell its stock.

But the Obama administration says it wants to divest the stock as soon as possible.
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