Chrysler today posted a $212 million profit in the third-quarter, for its second quarterly profit since its 2009 bankruptcy, and increased its forecast for its full-year profit to $600 million.

The net income compares with a loss of $84 million a year ago and comes the day after the UAW passed its new contract with Chrysler, despite opposition from skilled trades workers.

Chrysler’s worldwide vehicle sales in the third quarter increased 24% to 496,000, for total revenues of $13.1 billion, up 19%. The automaker’s market share in the U.S., its biggest and most lucrative market, increased nearly two points to 11.4% in the quarter, as Japanese automakers’ sales plummeted due to production disruptions after their country’s March earthquake and tsunami.

The new contract and the improved financial outlook should allow the company to invest $4.5 billion and create more than 2,000 new jobs. All of the Big Three American automakers now have completed contracts with the UAW for the next several years.

The Detroit News reports:

The new contract between Chrysler Group LLC and the United Auto Workers appears headed for ratification, with only one major plant left to vote today.

Workers at Chrysler’s Toledo North Assembly Plant cast their ballots Monday. And while the results were still being tallied Monday night, it seemed likely that members of UAW Local 12 would throw their weight behind the new agreement, given that it promises major new investments in the Jeep factory.

The contract is not as generous as the contracts with Ford and General Motors, but that is largely because Chrysler is not yet as profitable as those companies and has further to go to regain a solid, long-term financial footing in the wake of the 2009 bankruptcy.

The United Auto Workers has made it official: Its 41,000 members at Ford Motor Co. voted to accept the tentative agreement, the union announced Wednesday.

Results concluded Tuesday at the 58 UAW-Ford locals.

The final tally after two weeks is 63 percent in favor of the agreement with 22,031 “yes” votes to 37 percent voting against or 12,957 “no” votes, including 4,243 skilled trades voting in favor and 2,268 against. Total number of votes cast was 34,988.

The plan includes $16 billion in new investment intended to create 12,000 more jobs for autoworkers. UAW members have just begun voting on a proposed deal with Chrysler.

Ford, which restructured without federal aid, now has 76,000 workers — more than it had in 2008.

Ford also has promised to add 7,000 workers in the next two years, hiring that starts late this year.

Chrysler added 4,300 jobs last year, ending 2010 about 600 shy of its 2008 employment level of 52,200. It also plans to hire 1,000 more.

At GM, U.S. employment stands at 77,000. Based on its forecasts, GM could employ up to 85,000 in the U.S. in the next two years — closer to the 92,000 it had in 2008.

The auto industry has added a total of 115,000 jobs since GM and Chrysler completed their restructurings as sales have consistently grown.

In a statement prior to CEO Sergio Marchionne hosting a visit from U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner later today, Chrysler said it plans to repay its government loans with a new term loan facility and newly issued debt securities that will be sold to institutional investors in a private offering.

The private debt offering is exempt from registration under the U.S. Securities Act and allows Chrysler to forego filing a formal prospectus publicly or seek SEC approval.

Chrysler will also use some of the $1.27 billion that it will receive from partner Fiat SpA to purchase an additional 16 percent stake in Chrysler to pay the loans in full as well as any related fees and expenses.

The Treasury Department has already received a sizable percentage of its loans to General Motors back as well, mostly through the sale of stock used as collateral when the company went public again late last year.

Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne suggested today that Chrysler may delay its initial public offering depending on the cash needs of the U.S. automaker and the auto workers union trust fund…

He said a decision on whether and when to take Chrysler public would depend on how much the automaker itself and the United Auto Workers health care trust, which pays health benefits for retirees and holds a 63.5 percent share in Chrysler, need liquidity.

“If those two needs are not there, then the IPO of Chrysler may or may not become relevant,” Marchionne told reporters after a Fiat shareholders meeting.

Marchionne had announced in July of last year that an IPO would get done sometime in 2011.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), for example, was (along with her husband) heavily invested in American International Group, which has received about $170 billion in federal help under the bailout, The Post found.

Republican Whip  Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his wife held stock, retirement plans and other investments worth at least $183,000 and as much as $495,000 in firms benefiting from federal government rescue efforts, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) voted against the initial bill, but has since become one of the loudest supporters of using the bailout money to save Detroit’s ailing automakers. Not that it’s helped his investments in Chrysler, which has received billions of dollars under the bailout.

His disclosure forms for the end of 2007 showed he had between $1,000 and $15,000 in company stock, which by the end of last year fell to between $1 and $1,000 in value.

The disclosures prompted Melanie Sloan, who heads Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a government watchdog group, to ask what just might be the appropriate question: “You wonder,” she told The Post, “if they’re voting on things because it’s good for the country or because it would increase their personal wealth.”

[W]hen the federal General Services Administration announced this week that it had spent $287 million in stimulus money to buy 17,205 new cars, it turned out that the biggest beneficiary was the Ford Motor Company, the only one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers that has not received a government bailout.

The General Services Administration, which manages a fleet of 213,000 vehicles for some 75 federal agencies, said it spent $129 million to buy 7,924 Fords; $105 million on 6,348 General Motors vehicles; and $53 million on 2,993 Chryslers.

Like buying Verizon stock, then grabbing an iPhone.