[Mr. Wyndham]

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre promised Monday that taxpayers will make a profit on the $50 billion that Treasury has sunk into the company over the past 13 months.

"I think the government's investment is well placed and I think they'll make a lot of money," Whitacre told reporters after an event at the annual auto show here Monday morning. "It won't be too long."

The promise of profits on the investment, which was echoed by GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz in an interview with CNNMoney.com Monday, is quite a bit more bullish than any previous forecast made by a GM executive.

GM has previously said it would repay a $6.7 billion loan that it received from Treasury by June of this year. It has already made the first payment of $1 billion.

In order for the rest of the money to be returned to taxpayers though, GM will need to file for an initial public offering of its stock so that Treasury can sell its 61% stake in GM.

Even if GM goes public again, the value of its stock would have to greatly exceed levels it had traded at before the company's bankruptcy in order for the stock to be worth enough for taxpayers to make a profit.

In fact, the company's overall market value would have to hit at least $67 billion for Treasury to recoup its investment. But Rod Lache, an analyst with Deutsche Bank, estimated in November that based on the trading in GM's bonds, investors were putting the future value of the company at only $42 billion.

So it remains uncertain if Whitacre will be able to back up his bold claim.


http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/11/news...ion=2010011114

Continued Good news on this topic.