Thursday, January 18, 2007

GM may sell more assets

Wednesday, January 10, 2007
GM may sell more assets
The Detroit News





General Motors Corp., which sold $17 billion in assets in the past 15 months, may sell more this year because the company still isn't generating cash from operations, Chief Financial Officer Fritz Henderson said.

"While we're burning cash, we need to be cognizant of what's on our balance sheet and what other assets might be monetized," he said in an interview Tuesday at the North American International Auto Show.

He wouldn't say what GM, the world's largest automaker, might sell.

Any asset sales this year would be "much less," Henderson said, declining to give an estimate.

GM's recent sales include 51 percent of its finance unit to a group led by Cerberus Capital Management LP, raising $14 billion over three years.

The automaker also sold stakes in Suzuki Motor Corp., Isuzu Motors Ltd. and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., raising $3 billion.

Those generated cash as GM lost $10.6 billion in 2005 and more than $3 billion through three quarters of last year.

"Selling off non-strategic pieces still makes sense to us," said Pete Hastings, a fixed-income analyst at Morgan Keegan & Co. in Memphis, Tennessee. "There's still some trimming that needs to be done."









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