North American Sales Boost GM Earnings

GM’s EPS include a $0.51 negative impact related to the repurchase of $800 million of preferred stock and an increment tax expense of $500 million. Excluding these items, GM’s EPS would have been $0.96.

North American pretax earnings rose from $1.7 billion a year ago to $2.18 billion this year. GM trimmed its losses in Europe from $487 million a year ago to $214 million this year. International pretax earnings were also way down, from $761 million a year ago to $299 million.

Of the company’s total net income of $700 million, almost $500 million came from North America. GM has got to do better internationally and in Europe, but that has been true for a long time. Maybe the company will part with Opel?

For the nine months in its current year, GM’s international pretax profits are down $887 million year-over-year, but European losses have been trimmed by $676 million. Overall, pretax profits are up $82 million in the first three-quarters of 2013.

The company’s CEO said:

We made gains in the third quarter as we improved our North American margins and increased our global share on the strength of our Chevrolet brand. Our efforts to build great cars and trucks and deliver solid financial results were recognized this quarter by Moody’s investment grade rating.

The earnings announcement did not include guidance, but the consensus estimate for the fourth quarter calls for EPS of $0.94 on revenues of $41.38 billion. Full-year EPS is estimated at $3.42 on revenues of $156.3 billion.

We noted this morning that the 2009 federal bailout of GM has cost U.S. taxpayers $9.7 billion and pondered whether that was money well spent.

GM shares were trading up about 2.7% in premarket activity Wednesday, at $37.00 in a 52-week range of $23.39 to $37.97. The consensus target price for the shares was around $46.90 before the report.