GM to sell its stake in Subaru parent

0 Comments | USA TODAY, October, 2005 | by James R. Healey

General Motors is selling its stake in Fuji Heavy Industries, the company that owns automaker Subaru, and will restate its second-quarter earnings to show a quarterly loss of roughly $1 billion, most of it due to a loss on the Fuji Heavy holdings, GM said Wednesday.

That's atop a net loss of $1.1 billion in the first quarter. GM reports third-quarter results Oct. 17.

It's the second time in eight months that GM has taken a hefty charge for a bad investment in a foreign car company and restated earnings to reflect that. In February, it untangled a deal with Italy's troubled Fiat. GM restated fourth-quarter 2004 earnings to reflect the cost of that, resulting in a loss for the quarter of $95 million rather than a profit of $630 million.

"These kinds of results...