GM Plans Public Stock Sale

VOA Breaking News (Voice of America)
November 2, 2010 at 7:55 pm

General Motors Co., the world’s second largest automaker, is planning to publicly sell stock later this month in a move that could reduce the majority share owned by the U.S. government to less than half.

Company officials said this week they hope to raise about $13 billion in the November 18 initial public offering of stock. That would include about $10.6 billion in common stock and another $2 billion to $3 billion in preferred stock that carries a prescribed dividend.

During the world economic meltdown two years ago, the U.S. government invested $50 billion in the automaker to keep the company operating. At the moment, the government owns 61 percent of GM, a figure that would be reduced to about 43 percent with the stock sale.

GM officials said 365 million shares of company stock will be offered to the public, with the price expected to be between $26 and $29 a share.

General Motors sold 6.5 million vehicles in 2009, second only to Toyota Motor Corp., which sold 7.2 million.

Some information in this story was provided by AP and Bloomberg.