Chrysler announces $1.70 billion loss

Press, 2 March 1981, Page 9

Chrysler announces $1.70 billion loss

NZPA-xeuter Detroit The Chrysler car company has announced the biggest annual loss in American corporate history only hours after receiving Governmentbacked loan guarantees to stat e off bankruptcy. Chrysler, the third biggest American car maker, said it lost $1.71 billion last year. The Government awarded Chrysler $4OO million more in Federally-backed loan guarantees, but' made clear that future aid would be harder to come, by. ■ \ ~ To win Government financial banking . the company hdd itcriconvince its leaders, suppliers and workers to make: $1.2 billion, in concessions over the next two

years, something it managed to complete last week. Chrysler, like other American makers, has been hit by olow demand because of recession, high interest rates and increasing competition from fuel-efficient Japanese imports. The company’s figures b.Zag to $4.17 billion t’..e totpl losses of the four main American car makers last year, the industry’s worst on record. - In the fourth qua r ter .of last year, ' Chrysler said it lost. $235 million — its best quarter, of the year. The biggest known corporate loss irrithe world was $4.23 billion by the British Steel Corporation in the year to March 30, 1980.