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.

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