General Motors Co. (GM) announced that it will resume the normal four-day work week at its Shreveport, Louisiana plant from today. The plant has been closed in the week ended March 18 on the back of parts shortage due to damages caused by earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

The Shreveport plant was the first plant to be closed in the U.S. due to the disaster in Japan on March 11 that killed more than 10,000 people, broke down infrastructure and triggered a nuclear crisis. It produces mid-size pickup trucks such as Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon. It employs 800 workers.

The plant was closed due to shortage of parts, particularly electronic air sensors that are produced by Hitachi Ltd. (HIT) in Japan. Hitachi supplies parts for several GM models.

Last week, GM also halted production at an engine plant in Buffalo, New York, and has temporarily laid off 59 of its 623 workers. The Buffalo facility supplies engines for compact pickups, Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, assembled in Shreveport, Louisiana. However, GM will bring the plant back to full production today.

The automaker asserted that it has sufficient vehicles in its inventory to meet consumer demand. It has trucks in inventory that could be sold over a period of two months.

GM, a Zacks #3 Rank (Hold) stock, posted a profit of 52 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2010, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5 cents per share. The results excluded net charges of $0.4 billion due to the previously disclosed $0.7 billion loss on the purchase of U.S. Treasury preferred shares.

In absolute terms, the company turned a profit of $510 million during the quarter in sharp contrast to a loss of $3.52 billion in the comparable quarter of 2009 driven by the recovery in the North American and European automotive markets.

The automaker generated revenues of $36.9 billion during the quarter, which was higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $34.9 billion. Unit sales escalated 11% to 2,173 vehicles from 1,952 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2009. The automaker occupied a market share of 11.5% during the quarter, up from 11.4% in the year-ago quarter.

 
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