DETROIT -- General Motors stock closed at $34.19 today, just above the $33 price of the initial public offering.
GM's owners sold at least 478 million common shares and were expected to sell 15 percent more, just 16 months after the automaker emerged from its 40-day government-funded bankruptcy. In its restructuring, GM lowered its break-even point, closed plants, shed four U.S. brands and wound down dealers -- all while surviving on $49.5 billion from the U.S. government and $8.6 billion from Canadian governments.
Including the extra 15 percent of shares, the U.S. Treasury reduced its stake from 61 percent to 33 percent, Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said.
"We'll never forget that support," CEO Dan Akerson told reporters on a conference call. "We know how we arrived here. We know what went wrong, and I believe we've learned a lot from that."
Earlier in the day, there was speculation that GM's shares could reach or even top $40 per share, but the high point was $35.99 within the first hour of trading.
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The U.S. Treasury was hoping the stock price wouldn't rise too much on the first day so it can avoid complaints that it should have asked more for its shares.
The Treasury, the UAW health care trust and Canadian governments received $32.75 per share of common stock they sold, after about 25 cents in fees to banks underwriting the deal. GM disclosed the fee this morning in a final notice making its stock offering effective.
After the underwriters' fees, the government likely recouped $13.5 billion on the sale. After a waiting period of at least six months, the government will need to sell its remaining shares in GM at an average of nearly $53 each to recoup its entire investment in GM. Along with the stock sale, it can count on $10 billion in repaid interest and loans and repurchased Series A preferred stock.
GM also sold at least 87 million Series B preferred shares worth at least $4.4 billion. Most of the proceeds will go toward GM's underfunded U.S. pension plans.
More than 90 percent of GM's stock offering went to North American firms, Liddell said.
Out of the likely $18.1 billion in common stock, close to $4 billion went to firms that allocate it to individuals -- deemed an important measure, since taxpayers put up the money for GM's restructuring.
Liddell said that was the biggest allocation to so-called "retail investors" of any IPO in history and a higher percentage than Visa's. Visa's 2008 common-stock IPO, the biggest in U.S. history, raised $19.7 billion, slightly more than GM's expected amount.
Distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services
