GM General Motors Company

By Mike Colias 

General Motors Co. reported a $292 million net profit in the first quarter despite a big hit from Covid-19 fallout, as strong pickup-trucks sales and restructuring before the crisis helped it avoid quarterly losses suffered by its Detroit rivals.

GM said Wednesday its pretax profit, excluding one-time items, was $1.25 billion for the first quarter, down 46% from the previous-year period. The company cited a $1.4 billion impact from the pandemic, which forced the closure of factories in China for much of the quarter, as well as about 10 days of downtime in North America.

Pretax earnings per share was 62 cents, better than analysts' estimate of 40 cents per share, according to FactSet.

The company said earnings-per-share were reduced by 28 cents because of lower values of its stakes in ride-hailing firm Lyft Inc. and French auto maker PSA Group.

The auto maker said its net-income results were hurt by restructuring costs in Australia and Thailand. Revenue fell 6% to $32.7 billion. GM swung to a $167 million loss in China, from a $376 million profit a year earlier.

GM shares rose about 3% in premarket trading Wednesday.

GM's pretax profit in North America -- one of its largest sales regions -- rose 16% to $2.2 billion amid sharply higher sales of large pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles. The company closed its roughly three dozen U.S. factories around March 20 amid the worsening Covid-19 outbreak.

The company said Wednesday it is working with the United Auto Workers union on factory safety protocols and is targeting a May 18 restart date for the majority of its manufacturing operations in the U.S. and Canada. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported the reopening timeline.

Write to Mike Colias at Mike.Colias@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 06, 2020 08:39 ET (12:39 GMT)

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