General Motors Co. returned to Wall Street on Thursday after it was delisted a year and half ago when the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
The car maker raised its IPO to 33 U.S. dollars per share as the offering was much more welcomed than originally planned. The offering's total value should be about 23.2 billion dollars, including 18.2 billion dollars from the sale of common stock and 5 billion dollars from selling preferred stock.
The IPO is its biggest step yet away from being owned by the government, which rescued the auto maker and became its largest shareholder with last year's bailout. The offering will reduce U.S. Treasury's stake from 61 percent to around 26 percent.
According to the Wall Street Journal, GM already sold about 478 million shares on Wednesday. An additional 71.7 million shares are expected to be sold by GM's bankers as part of an "overallotment" allowed when sales are stronger than expected. And it sold 4.35 billion dollars in preferred shares.
To mark its return to Wall Street, GM is displaying the battery- powered Chevrolet Volt and other models outside the New York Stock Exchange, and Chief Executive Dan Akerson signaled the opening of Thursday's trading on the exchange floor.
The company's goal is to be debt free and to pay all its pension liabilities, said Akerson. Talking about the significant comeback for the iconic company, Akerson once said the new GM is totally different from the old one. While Tim Lee, GM's President of International Operations gave it a further explanation.
"The new GM is a combination of all the great things we were in the old GM, plus a new vision for the future -- designing, building and selling the world's best vehicles; a new business model -- an opportunity for leverage growth here in the U.S. and as well as in the international operations. Fundamentally a business that is far less risky than it was in the past," Tim told Xinhua.
