GM’s return to S&P 500 prompts stake sale

Financial Times ^ | June 5, 2013 | Robert Wright

[John W]

The US Treasury and a union healthcare fund are to exploit General Motors’ return to the S&P 500 stock market index by selling a further 3.6 per cent stake – worth $3.6bn – in the recovering carmaker.

The sale – made up of 30m shares held by the Treasury and 20m held by Veba, the United Auto Workers’ pension and healthcare fund – will reduce the government’s stake in GM to about 14 per cent and Veba’s to about 9 per cent.

The US Treasury, the UAW and the Canadian government all co-operated in a bailout and restructuring of GM in 2009 in which the carmaker, the US’s largest by sales, was put through a managed bankruptcy process. The Canadian government retains 9 per cent.