FORT WORTH, Texas — General Motors Financial/AmeriCredit announced latest financial results on Thursday, and in addition to revealing the company is looking to expand its prime lease program to near-prime and subprime customers, officials said quarterly loan originations are starting to come close to the $1 billion mark.

The origination level for the December quarter came in at $935 million, which while down slightly from the prior quarter's figure of $959 million, is much higher than $379 million for the same period of 2009.

Financing for General Motors vehicles accounted for 18.1 percent of all loan originations for the quarter, compared with 15.7 percent in the prior period and 10.8 percent in the previous year.

Moreover, GM Financial revealed finance receivables hit $8.6 billion as of Dec. 31.

Caitlin DeYoung, vice president of investors relations, explained to SubPrime Auto Finance News Thursday, "Net income was $75 million for the December 2010 quarter compared to $46 million for the December 2009 quarter. We are seeing stable economic and labor market conditions and favorable trends in new- and used-vehicle sales levels. These factors, along with our strong portfolio credit performance and good access to the capital markets to fund originations, supports our growth initiatives for 2011.

"We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in 2011 for GM Financial and our dealer and consumer customers. We recently launched our prime lease program for GM dealers in December 2010, and it was very well-received by dealers. We have since made the program available to GM dealers in 15 additional states and look for the lease program to be available nationally by this summer. We are looking to expand our prime lease program to near-prime and subprime customers and plan to expand the program to Canada this year. We are committed to providing dealers more financing options and will continue to look to develop other programs and products to help dealers sell more vehicles," she continued.

GM Financial also reported that its net income for the quarter was impacted by $16 million of expenses directly related to its acquisition by General Motors.

Continuing on, management said annualized net charge-offs were 5.5 percent of average finance receivables for the quarter, compared with 8.9 percent in the prior year.

As for finance receivables 31-60 days delinquent, these were 6.2 percent of the portfolio as of Dec. 31, compared with 7.7 percent in 2009. Also, accounts more than 60 days delinquent were 2.4 percent of the portfolio, compared with 3.7 percent.

According to DeYoung, "Both 30-60 day delinquencies and 60-plus day delinquencies metrics showed year-over-year improvement. The ongoing improvements in our overall credit performance reflect the increasing concentration of loans originated since the credit tightening in early 2008, which have performed well. Additionally, stable economic and labor market conditions, along with strong used-car pricing has supported these positive results. As for seasonality, year-over-year results remove seasonal impacts.'

Furthermore, she shed some light on charge-off trends, saying, "Historically, we experience a typical seasonal uptick in the charge-off rate from the September to December quarter. The relatively small sequential increase in charge-off rate from September to December and the significant year-over-year improvement in charge-off rate are indicative of the favorable credit trends we are experiencing in our portfolio."

Matching the current auction conditions, the vice president also told SubPrime Auto Finance News that the company's recovery rate continues to come in strong. DeYoung said this rate came in at 45.9 percent for the December period, and that management expects "used-vehicle pricing to remain strong by historical standards due to the limited used-vehicle supply and robust demand" going forward for the year.

Reviewing GM Financial's liquidity, management pointed out the company had $767 million on tap as of Dec. 31, consisting of $195 million of unrestricted cash, about $272 million of borrowing capacity on unpledged eligible receivables and $300 million on a line of credit from GM.

During the quarter, GM Financial apparently used available cash to retire $463 million of convertible senior notes in connection with its acquisition by GM.

In conclusion, DeYoung said that while the company continues to ramp up its GM franchised dealer business, independent dealers are still a strong focus.

"Non-GM dealers continue to represent a significant portion of our originations and we are committed to offering a competitive subprime financing product to non-GM dealers and maintain the high quality service they've come to expect from GM Financial," she stressed.

Earlier this year, during the National Automobile Dealers Association Convention, GM Financial shared more details on its prime leasing product, as well as talking about its planned re-entry to Canada with SubPrime Auto Finance News. To view this earlier story, click here.