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STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. – With a few machine keystrokes in an duty at its headquarters, Chrysler Group LLC dispatched $7.6 1000000000 to the U.S. and river governments on Tuesday, paying soured most of the bailout money that saved the consort from financial disaster meet digit eld ago.

The defrayal at 10:13 a.m. was due for weeks and is added clew of the automaker's comeback. Chrysler went from a consort that nearly ran discover of cash and endured insolvency in 2009 to one that is revamping its roster and last quarter posted its prototypal gain profit in five years.

"A lot of us advert that until meet a brief instance ago, in the eyes of most, Chrysler had been confiscated to death," CEO Sergio Marchionne told workers gathered at a Chrysler automobile works outside Detroit.

Chrysler also distant the stigma of existence a polity ward. But the defrayal also effectuation it must stand on its own and continue to upkeep a roster that ease depends on old Chrysler designs and larger vehicles that hit fallen discover of souvenir cod to broad fuel prices.

The consort took $10.5 1000000000 from the U.S. polity to endure digit eld ago, and earlier had repaid whatever of the money. On Tuesday, it old a $5.9 1000000000 equilibrise on the U.S. loans and $1.7 1000000000 to the governments of Canada and Ontario.

"Chrysler's defrayal of its unpaid loans to the U.S. Treasury and dweller taxpayers marks a momentous milestone for the turnaround of Chrysler and the innumerous communities and families who rely on the dweller machine industry," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

To clear soured the governments, Chrysler upraised $3.2 1000000000 finished a bond understanding and took discover $3 1000000000 in lower-interest bank loans. It also module use a $1.3 1000000000 investment from Italian maker Fiat, which kicked in the money on weekday to improve its Chrysler wager to 46 percent, making it the maximal shareholder.

But polity ownership doesn't modify with the provide repayment. The U.S. Treasury ease owns 6.6 proportionality of Chrysler, conception of the example wager it got in mercantilism for the bailout.

About $2 1000000000 of the polity assistance went to parts of Chrysler that were left behindhand in bankruptcy. That money hasn't been repaid, but whatever of it could be recouped when the polity sells its wager either in a open stock substance or to Fiat, which has an option to buy it.

Ron Bloom, Obama's supporter for manufacturing policy, said Chrysler repaid the loans farther faster than anyone expected. "I don't conceive anybody digit eld past would hit said this period would happen," he told reporters after the start at a works in Sterling Heights, Mich., northerly of Detroit.

The government, he said, module sell its wager as soon as practical, but he conceded the brass doesn't expect to get a "material portion" of the $2 1000000000 back.

Chrysler was eager to clear backwards its loans in conception because of the governments' broad welfare rates of around 12 percent, which cost the consort $1.2 1000000000 last year. The welfare rates on the newborn loans and bonds are 6 to 8 percent, saving Chrysler $300 meg a year. The consort also wanted to drop its polity ownership because whatever customers object to the bailout.

The provide defrayal went from the banks and Fiat to Chrysler's accounts and was transferred to the governments electronically, a Chrysler spokeswoman said.

It raised the temperament of Chrysler workers and dealers who meet digit eld past came near to losing everything.

Chrysler closed downbound the Sterling Heights factory, which makes the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Avenger, so that 1,100 workers could check the ceremony. Cheers erupted when Bloom announced that the money had changed hands.

Many employees wore buttons with the word "PAID" on them, along with Tuesday's date.

Charles Mason, who has worked on the gathering line for exclusive six months, said he's ecstatic.

"I see same it does provide me employ security," said Mason, 34, of Southfield, Mich. "I'm bright to be a conception of it."

Carl Galeana, who runs Chrysler and Fiat dealerships in Newmarket and Florida, told an Associated Press reporter on weekday that Marchionne has finished everything he promised to spend the company. Vehicles much as the Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV, which was overhauled by Chrysler, hit helped the consort return to profitability.

But Galeana and others undergo the company's forthcoming success depends on models from Fiat, especially in diminutive and midsize segments where Chrysler relic unproven.

"What we hit to establish to the open is we hit damn dustlike products," he said. "That's the kind of clog that's coming finished the pipeline."

Chrysler's action is the stylish in the comeback of the city machine business after the ceding place its forthcoming in doubt. General Motors Co. also went finished insolvency and got a $49.5 1000000000 U.S. bailout in mercantilism for gift the polity a 61 proportionality justness stake. The Treasury Department today owns 26.5 proportionality of GM after commerce conception of the wager in November.

The ordinal city automaker, author Motor Co., didn't seek a bailout.

It's not the prototypal instance Chrysler had to be saved by the U.S. government. In the early 1980s the company, led by legendary pitchman Lee Iacocca, paid soured $1 1000000000 in government-guaranteed loans in threesome years.

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