NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Feb. 1, 2012--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it views Chrysler Group LLC's (B+/Stable/--) fourth-quarter earnings, announced today, as consistent with its rating on the company. For our rating on Chrysler, we assumed the North American market will continue its gradual recovery during 2012; Chrysler's EBITDA margins would be around 8% in 2011; and that free operating cash flow would be at least $500 million in 2011. We also assumed Chrysler's retail and fleet share in the U.S. was at least 10% for all of 2011; in fact, it was about 10.5%. Chrysler's results are in line with our assumptions; fourth-quarter and full-year EBITDA margins were 7.7% and 8.6%, respectively. Free cash flow
