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Treasury says auto bailout tally drops to $20.3 billion

In December, the US Treasury announced that it was going to sell all of its shares in General Motors within 12 to 15 months. The first tranche of the 500-million total shares was purchased by GM, which took 200 million of them at $27.50 per share. That price represents an eight-percent premium over the market price at the time. The remaining 300 million shares will be sold "through various means in an orderly fashion."
Of the $418 billion disbursed through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a report in Automotive News indicates that "about 93 percent" has been paid back, and the latest figures put Treasury's loss from the program overall at $55.58 billion. That's a $4.1 billion improvement on the last figure, when the expected red ink added up to $59.68 billion. The auto industry's portion of that loss is estimated to be $20.3 billion, a 16-percent drop from the earlier estimate of $24.3 billion.
The Treasury now owns 19 percent of GM, but if all goes well, there will be no more cause for anyone to utter "Government Motors" by the end of Q1 next year. A loss of some kind is still expected, however. Although GM's stock price is close to $29 at the time of this writing, that's still $4 below its IPO price and well below the $72 share price necessary for the government to come out even on its GM investment. On second thought, maybe the ribbing will continue.

How the demise of Lincoln's Town Car has kick-started a limo revolution

The deaths of the Ford Crown Victoria and the Lincoln Town Car have meant overhauls of three high-profile American fleets: police, taxi and livery car. Just as police fleets are more open to considering other options and a Nissan van is the new face of the NYC taxi, livery car companies are looking at replacements for the Town Car beyond The Blue Oval. Ford, via Lincoln, has made an MKT Town Car (pictured), but an article in the Detroit News claims "it has failed to win over most of the big limousine companies." The upstarts trying to move in include livery and limo editions of the Cadillac XTS, and livery specifications of the Toyota Avalon and Chrysler 300.
Each of those challengers, however, faces challenges. The Town Car was a workhorse, American, rear-wheel-drive sedan with plenty of rear legroom. Cadillac has been in the livery space before but with decontented models that were about selling the brand, not its luxury. It is taking the opposite approach with the XTS, pointing out that its livery edition is "contented in the upper half of the XTS range." Still, the CEO of Michigan's largest livery company says "it's quite a bit smaller than what we're used to," and he also prefers rear-wheel drive.
The Chrysler 300 is rear-wheel drive, and American, which matters to some companies, but Chrysler hasn't yet revealed the livery package for it. The livery Avalon marks Toyota's first time getting into that business in the US, a natural step after having done so well with taxi clients and with the Town Car out of the way. Still, the livery client is a different to taxi buyers, so the Avalon could face other soft-touch hurdles.

Chrysler banks $507 million in Q2, trims 2013 earnings forecast

Chrysler has some good news and some bad news. First, profits were up 16 percent over the second quarter of 2012, bringing the Auburn Hills, Michigan-based manufacturer $507 million on the back of strong demand for trucks and SUVs (a recurring theme this quarter, particularly in the US). Q2 revenue was up as well, from $16.8 billion in 2012 to $18 billion in 2013. The bad news is that the Pentastar's overall earnings forecast for net income in 2013 has been trimmed from $2.2 billion to between $1.7 and $2.2 billion, according to Automotive News.
In addition to the adjusted net income forecast, Chrysler tweaked its operating profit from $3.8 billion to between $3.3 and $3.8 billion. This has gone largely unexplained by Chrysler, perhaps hoping the news of a three-percent increase in its transaction prices for Q2 will allow it to sweep this adjustment under the rug.
The star of the show for Chrysler has been its US sales, which saw a 10-percent jump, both bettering the industry average of eight percent and improving over the same stretch of 2012. As with the increase in transaction prices, Chrysler has the new Ram pickup and Jeep Grand Cherokee to thank. Perhaps most worrying from this report, though, is that every brand in the automaker's stable saw an increase in sales... except for the Chrysler brand itself.