Detroit - General Motors Co. has a reasonable chance of being profitable this year, new Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said today.

In a wide-ranging interview with reporters at the Renaissance Center, home to GM headquarters, Liddell discussed the automaker's efforts to prepare for selling shares of the company to the public, instituting fresh-start accounting, his relationship with Chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre Jr., and repaying the government's $50 billion investment in GM, reported <em>The Detroit News</em>.

The get-together was a coming out party for Liddell, who has kept a low media profile since being hired in December by Whitacre.

Liddell, who has been on the job for about seven weeks, is viewed by many as the CEO-in-waiting and was Whitacre's first major hire -- one aimed at improving GM's reputation and financial organization.

Liddell disagreed with characterizations by the members of President Barack Obama's auto task force that GM's financial organization, prior to last year's bankruptcy filing, was among the worst they'd seen at a large corporation.

Liddell replaced Ray Young, who became vice president of international operations.

Liddell said GM might launch an initial public offering of company stock later this year, but conditions have to be right. The economy, financial markets and vehicle sales have to improve, and GM needs to be profitable before that happens, he said.

In January, Whitacre predicted GM would be profitable this year but days later softened his comments, saying, "I hope we can achieve a profit."

Liddell, who was CFO at Microsoft Corp., will be paid $750,000 plus stock awards and stands to get as much as $5.45 million in GM stock starting in 2012.

He holds a degree in engineering, ran a big forest products company in his native New Zealand and, as CFO of Microsoft, helped draft a $3 billion cost-cutting plan.

Liddell, who also serves as a vice chairman, picked GM over about four other job opportunities

The decision to work at GM was simple given the automaker's emergence from bankruptcy, he said.

Liddell said it was too early to speculate about eventually succeeding Whitacre.