Automaker

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, said yesterday that its campaign to expand its use of the Internet will boost profits faster than its other business strategies.The automaker's Internet activities include a global business-to-business purchasing network, satellites that deliver e-mail and related services to drivers, and a GMBuyPower Web site through which more vehicles are sold and delivered."Nothing has the potential for higher returns in the next five years," GM President Richard Wagoner, who said he barely used a personal computer 12 months ago, said during a year-end meeting.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. saw its profit grow 33 percent in the third quarter as political campaigns and automakers ramped up spending on advertising, the Hunt Valley-based company said Thursday. The broadcaster earned $26.2 million in the three months that ended Sept. 30, or 32 cents per share, compared with $19.2 million during the same months last year, or 24 cents per share. Boosted by political and automotive advertising, sales from continuing operations jumped 49 percent to $226.4 million, from $151.9 million in the third quarter of 2011.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Chrysler Corp.'s third-quarter profit almost doubled, the company reported yesterday, easily topping expectations, as sales of its Dodge Ram pickups and restyled minivans helped the automaker boost its U.S. market share to its highest level since the 1950s.Chrysler's profit from operations climbed 91 percent to $735 million, or $1 a share, from 48 cents, or $385 million, in the year-ago period. Analysts had expected earnings of 69 cents a share, according to a survey of 16 analysts by First Call Corp.

Lost in all the recent furor over the federal debt-ceiling and gridlocked Washington was a major breakthrough for the Obama administration and good news for the economy, national security and environment. Thanks to an accord reached with automakers, regulators, unions and the state of California, President Barack Obama proposed vehicle fuel efficiency standards last Friday that could dramatically reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil. The new rules call for a 54.5-miles-per-gallon fleet-wide standard for cars and light trucks by 2025 - based on a 5 percent improvement each year beginning in 2017.

You might never experience the thrill of driving a Ferrari on an open highway, but the elite Italian automaker at least has something for your feet: a cross-training athletic shoe. Under a licensing agreement with automaker Ferrari S.p.A., Italy's Fila Holding S.p.A., whose U.S. subsidiary is based in Sparks, begins selling the shoe today through Footaction USA, a sporting goods retailer with more than 500 outlets nationwide. The company also will sell Ferrari-brand clothing lines and accessories, such as bags and backpacks, through Web sites and about 100 independent retailers nationwide.

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, has backed away from a plan to buy and run as many as 770 dealerships throughout the United States, after the company's dealers mobilized against the plan.GM and Ford Motor Co. have tried to take greater control of their dealer networks. All automakers want to streamline vehicle distribution and selling, which analysts say account for as much as 27 percent of a new vehicle's price.Dealers fought GM's initiative, viewing manufacturer-owned dealerships as a threat to their survival.

DETROIT - General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. reported yesterday that their domestic sales fell in October as the two largest U.S. automakers reduced incentives. Sales rose at DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler and Toyota Motor Corp., helped by new models. Sales fell 4.7 percent at GM and 5 percent at Ford. GM announced it would further cut North American production in the fourth quarter. Chrysler's sales increased 2.3 percent. Toyota posted a 13 percent rise, along with gains of 27 percent at Nissan Motor Co. and 10 percent at Honda Motor Co. GM and Ford scaled back incentives and relied on new models such as Ford's Five Hundred sedan.

TOKYO -- General Motors Corp. agreed yesterday to buy 20 percent of Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., the maker of Subaru vehicles, for $1.4 billion to accelerate GM's push into Asia.The investment, which was expected, gives the world's largest automaker an interest in an automaker known for four-wheel-drive vehicles.With its existing Japanese holdings, GM now has a position in every segment of Japan's auto market, including mini-vehicles, small and midsize cars and trucks.GM already owns 10 percent of Suzuki Motor Corp.

WASHINGTON - Nissan Motor Co., which has about 15,000 American employees, said yesterday that it may have to cut production in the United States unless the federal government exempts the automaker from a fuel-economy rule. Without an exemption, Nissan may have to pay millions of dollars in penalties because some Mexican-made Sentras won't meet U.S. fuel-economy standards. At issue is the inclusion of the Sentras in Nissan's non-import fleet starting with 2005 models, the automaker said.

Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally said the "head winds" of a slowing economy and tighter credit won't delay the automaker's return to profitability. "We put together a pretty robust transformation plan," Mulally said in an interview this week in New York. He said the strategy, which has the second-biggest U.S. automaker turning a profit in 2009, anticipated the risks of an economic slowdown as well as greater difficulty for companies and consumers in borrowing from their usual lenders.

As political leaders and corporate officials brandished shovels at a ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday, Martinez Fernandez mused on the importance of the day: A new General Motors plant would be built in White Marsh, a development that would mean more work, more jobs — and more pride. "This is a good day for GM," said Fernandez, 55, who has worked for the company for 36 years, as have three of his relatives. Before it closed several years ago, Fernandez worked at GM's Baltimore plant on Broening Highway.

The Obama administration's pay czar said Tuesday that he was cutting compensation an average of 15 percent for the top executives at American International Group Inc., General Motors Co., Chrysler and two other companies that received exceptional federal bailouts and have yet to repay the money. Guaranteed cash salaries or bonuses for the 25 top executives at the companies, which also include financing arms GMAC and Chrysler Financial, were cut an average of 33 percent from last year's levels, said Kenneth R. Feinberg, special master for executive compensation under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

General Motors Co. chief executive Fritz Henderson stepped down Tuesday, signaling continued turmoil over turnaround efforts at the troubled automaker. Board chairman Edward Whitacre Jr. will temporarily take over the CEO spot until a permanent replacement is found, GM said. "We all agreed more changes were needed," Whitacre said to reporters in a news conference in Detroit. Henderson, a longtime GM veteran, was named to the top executive job in March, after the removal of his predecessor, Rick Wagoner, at the hands of the Obama administration.

An eight-acre swath of Baltimore's Charles Village neighborhood would be transformed from a longtime auto dealership into a mix of housing and shops under preliminary plans from a developer buying the site. The owner of Anderson Automotive, one of the 1,100 dealerships whose franchises won't be renewed next year by General Motors Corp., plans to sell a portion of his property to a developer planning to invest tens of millions of dollars and bring in hundreds of jobs, said an attorney for the developer.

General Motors Corp. hopes to emerge from bankruptcy as a leaner, greener company armed with a lineup of vehicles that can compete with a growing roster of global rivals. The big question is whether that formula adds up to a return to profitability - or simply delays the company's eventual collapse into insolvency. On Monday in New York, where GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Chief Executive Fritz Henderson outlined an operating plan that he said would restructure the century-old automaker with "pure, unadulterated speed."

WASHINGTON -President Obama's decision to save Chrysler by pushing it into bankruptcy Thursday puts the company in risky, uncharted territory for a major U.S. automaker and could portend a similar outcome for General Motors Corp. as it races to meet its own government restructuring deadline. The administration is betting Chrysler's future on its ability to emerge quickly from what can be a complex and unpredictable legal process. Obama also is tying the company's fate to Fiat, a foreign owner who may not fathom American car buyers.

DETROIT - When Ford Motor Co. retakes control of numerous Visteon plants, the automaker will continue to subsidize the wages of workers at those plants, even as they are sold to other companies. Yesterday, Ford and Visteon released details of an extensive bailout plan to save the nation's second-largest auto supplier, which had been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The plan calls for Ford to take over a total of 24 facilities, including 15 UAW-organized former Ford facilities, some non-union U.S. facilities such as engineering centers, and four Mexican sites.

The yawning gap between the world's two biggest automakers widened yesterday as Toyota Motor Corp. posted record fiscal third-quarter profit and General Motors Corp. introduced a new round of cost-cutting to help halt its mounting losses. "It's a case of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer," said analyst Shelly Lombard at GimmeCredit, a New York corporate bond research firm. GM, under pressure from billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian to accelerate its turnaround efforts, said it would halve its annual dividend to $1 a share, cut Chief Executive Officer G. Richard Wagoner Jr.'s salary by 50 percent, trim the pay of several other top executives by 30 percent and freeze retired salaried workers' health benefits.

Amid swirling rumors about the fate of the U.S. auto industry, Ford Motor Co., the only domestic carmaker not to rely on federal aid, reported a first-quarter loss of $1.4 billion, bettering analysts' expectations. Although Ford's results were received enthusiastically on Wall Street, they were in great part overshadowed by reports that the Obama administration was preparing a bankruptcy filing for Chrysler and that General Motors Corp. was considering ending its Pontiac brand. In addition, the Treasury Department confirmed Friday that it had given GM an additional $2 billion in funding, raising the company's total federal loans to $15.4 billion to date.