I don't think anyone really expects the "loan" to ever be repaid.  Governments give "loans" because a "loan" doesn't get included as on-budget spending where a "grant" would.  We're still spending the money but we can pretend, from a deficit/surplus standpoint, that it wasn't spent.

The "loan" only shows up on-budget many years in the future, after the company has failed to pay it back (as expected) when the government decides to write off the loss.  The exact timing of that is fairly arbitrary so it allows the government flexibility to write off losses when they feel it will have little political impact (and usually when it can be blamed on "the other party who was in power at that time").