GM sees record annual profits, Opel takes loss

Feb 16, 2012, 17:15 GMT

New York - General Motors Co on Thursday reported record earnings in 2011 despite losses at its European business unit.

GM, which filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and received bailout loans from the US government, said profits surged to 7.6 billion dollars, a 62 per cent rise from 2010.

GM'S fourth-quarter profit were 500 million dollars, unchanged from the same period a year earlier.

The company's European unit Opel recorded operating losses of 747 million dollars last year.

In 2009, GM cancelled plans to sell the division which makes Opel and Vauxhall cars in Germany and Britain. The 2011 losses again raise the spectre of an uncertain future.

The figures came short of the 2-billion-dollar loss in 2010, but dampened hopes that the unit would become profitable.

Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson said in Detroit that GM had been winning market share around the globe, but admitted sales in Europe and South America were below expectations.

The European unit has only turned a profit in one of the past 12 years, in 2006. Last year GM shut a car factory in the Belgian city of Antwerp and slashed its workforce of 48,000 by 8,000.

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