GM files to sell shares to the public

story by CNN Money
written by Ben Rooney

NEW YORK -- General Motors filed documents Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell shares of common stock to the public again.

The automaker said the number of shares to be offered and the price range have not been determined. The shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the company's previous ticker symbol of "GM." At the same time, GM said it will offer an unspecified number of Series B preferred stock.

Separately, the Treasury Department said it has agreed to be a selling shareholder of common stock in GM, although it did not say how much it might sell.

The current GM was created out of the ashes of the automaker's bankruptcy process in July 2009, and is owned by combination of taxpayers, former bondholders and union-controlled trust funds.

A majority of the stock is held by governments that bailed out the automaker to keep it operating through the bankruptcy process. The U.S. Treasury received 60.8% of the company's 500 million common shares, while the Canadian government received 17.5%. In order to get back most of the taxpayer money spent on the bailouts, stock needs to be sold to investors.

The U.S. Treasury gave $50 billion to GM, receiving common and preferred stock in return for most of that money. While GM has since paid back almost $7 billion in loans to Treasury, the company's stock will need to reach a total market value of roughly $67 billion in order for U.S. taxpayers to break even on Treasury's common shares.

That level might be possible -- experts have forecast a market value of between $64 billion and $90 billion. But it is far from certain.

In addition to the government-owned shares, union-controlled trust funds have an additional 17.5% stake. Those trust funds were set up to cover the promised health care expenses of GM retirees and their family members.

Creditors of the old company, primarily bondholders, will end up splitting about 10% of the new company's stock. Top GM executives will be issued about 1% of the stock, six months after the IPO.