GM posts $10 billion Q1 loss

GM said it burned through $10.2 billion in the first quarter,operating under a federal bailout.

General Motors Corp said it burned through $10.2 billion in the first quarter,operating under a federal bailout,as auto sales fell across the globe and it scrambled to cut costs.

The automaker on Thursday posted a quarterly net loss of $6 billion,compared with a loss of $3.3 billion a year earlier.

Revenue dropped by almost half to $22.4 billion as sales plunged in North America and fell in Europe,Asia and Latin America.

Excluding $73 million of one-time net charges,GM posted a loss of $9.66 per share. That was within the wide range of analysts’ expectations but narrower than the average forecast of a loss per share of $11.05 as tracked by Reuters Estimates.

GM is facing a government-imposed June 1 deadline to reach agreements to overhaul its operations and cut more than $40 billion in debt. The company has taken $15.4 billion in emergency loans from the U.S. Treasury to date.

The first quarter was also marked by GM’s failure to win new federal backing for a turnaround plan that the U.S. autos task force concluded was too slow-moving and too cautious to succeed.

The Obama administration ousted Rick Wagoner as GM chief executive at the end of the first quarter.

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Creditors have been looking beyond GM’s results,focusing instead on whether it succeeds in winning debt concessions from its bondholders and the United Auto Workers union,analysts said.

The automaker said on Thursday that it had not yet reached the deal it needs with the UAW. It also said the Treasury had not yet agreed to convert half of the loans it has extended to GM into stock in a restructured company.