GM roadshow to begin after elections: sources

Vehicles for sale are parked at a Cadillac dealer in Sherman Oaks, Calif. GM plans to begin courting investors for its IPO immediately after the Nov. 2 U.S. midterm congressional elections.

 

Automaker General Motors Co plans to begin courting investors for its initial public offering immediately after the November 2 U.S. midterm congressional elections, two sources familiar with the plans said on Wednesday.

GM's roadshow is set to begin on November 3 and will last two weeks, the sources said. The IPO is expected to price on November 17 and debut on November 18, the sources said.
The sources cautioned that the plans were still being finalized and could change based on how U.S. stock markets perform.

Waiting until after the November 2 elections would also allow bankers to tout GM's third-quarter financial results to investors although the automaker has cautioned that the second half of the year will show a slowdown from the first half.

In August, GM filed paperwork for an IPO that could be worth as much as $20 billion, making it potentially one of the biggest IPOs of all time and the biggest new issue in the United States since Visa Inc's March 2008 IPO of $19.7 billion.

The final value of the IPO has not been set but one source said early plans for the IPO envisioned selling $12 billion to $16 billion in common stock and $3 billion to $4 billion in preferred stock that would convert to common stock under a mandatory provision.

GM filed paperwork for its IPO just over a year after emerging from a government-sponsored restructuring in bankruptcy. The U.S. government poured $50 billion of taxpayer money into the carmaker and emerged with a 61 percent stake.