General Motors Files for IPO; Says Buh-Bye to Socialism

General Motors has just announced the filing of papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) that will see the company handed back over to investors and removed from government control.

Including in the filing are plans for preferred stock that carries with it both debt and equity and also has priority in a bankruptcy situation.

According to a Bloomberg report, GM hopes to generate $16 billion by the IPO, selling off roughly a fifth of the stock currently owned by the U.S. Treasury. This would then make the government a minority shareholder in General Motors and is likely to be followed by continued sell-offs until GM is entirely out of government hands. Currently the U.S. government owns a 61 percent stake in GM.

GM has already paid back the $6.7 billion in loans it received from the U.S. and Canadian governments, however, that amount is only a small portion of the almost $50 billion bailout GM received.

Official release after the jump:

DETROIT – General Motors Company today announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed initial public offering consisting of common stock to be sold by certain of its stockholders and the issuance by the company of its Series B mandatory convertible junior preferred stock.

The amount of securities offered will be determined by market conditions and other factors at the time of the offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined.

Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan (representatives of the underwriters), BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS Investment Bank will be the joint book-running managers for the offering. When available, copies of the preliminary prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained for free, by visiting the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov. Alternatively, you may obtain a copy of the preliminary prospectus, by contacting:

A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the SEC but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.