Chrysler Reports Full-Year Profit on Strong U.S. Sales

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Fiat took control of the third-biggest U.S. automaker in 2009 as part of a government bailout.

Last year was the first time a company named Chrysler reported a net income since 1997, when the company showed a net profit of $2.8 billion.

From 1998 until 2007, as a unit of Daimler AG, Chrysler reported only an operating profit or loss, and last posted an operating profit in 2005, at $1.8 billion. It did not post profits when from 2007 to 2009 when it was owned by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management.

SHORING UP FIAT

As European auto sales sink amid a sovereign debt crisis, it is Chrysler that is now shoring up Fiat. In the third quarter, Chrysler made up two-thirds of Fiat's profit.

Net income for the fourth quarter of $225 million was the largest net profit since the new Chrysler was formed after its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring.

The company said full-year 2011 adjusted net income would have been $734 million excluding a $551 million charge linked to Chrysler's repayment in May of U.S. and Canadian government loans.

Chrysler also said it was targeting an 18-percent jump to about $65 billion in revenue in 2012. It also said its modified operating profit was targeted to reach at least $3 billion in 2012, about 50 percent higher than in 2011.

The higher profit would come, Chrysler said, from a nearly 30-percent jump in company global auto sales to 2.4 million vehicles from 2011's 1.86 million.