Workers can buy GM stock

DETROIT – General Motors’ employees, retirees and car dealers will get a chance to invest in their company when the automaker’s stock is sold to the public.

GM sent letters to workers and dealers in the U.S. and Canada on Oct. 5 giving them the opportunity to buy shares when the initial public offering takes place. The deadline to register for the sale is Oct. 22.

Employees and dealers will be able to buy the stock at its offering price, which has not been set. A government watchdog’s estimate is $133 per share, although the stock will most likely be split and offered at a cheaper price. Workers, retirees and dealers must invest more than $1,000 to buy stock, but the minimum and maximum number of shares a person can buy is still being determined, the letter said.

Like other investors, employees and retirees can sell their shares at any time after GM’s stock starts trading in markets. GM has about 600,000 employees and retirees in the U.S and Canada.

The automaker is planning to hold the IPO in mid-November.

The U.S. government is GM’s largest owner. It holds a 61 percent equity stake in the company, which it got in return for giving GM $50 billion to get through bankruptcy last year. The government hopes to get its money back by selling shares in the IPO and through several follow-up offerings. GM has repaid the government $6.7 billion.

GM’s other shareholders – the Canadian and Ontario governments, a union health care trust fund and GM’s old bondholders – also can sell stock in the initial stock sale. Just how many shares each owner intends to sell has not been made public.