GM has orders for $60b in stock

General Motors Co's landmark initial public offering has already garnered $60 billion in orders, six times the amount it had planned to raise, in a sign of healthy investor interest for the massive automaker that was in desperate straits just over a year ago.
The robust demand for shares of GM, the American industrial icon which filed for bankruptcy in June 2009, underscores growing investor confidence the auto industry has come through the punishing downturn of the past two years with sharply lower costs and higher profit potential.
GM's IPO is expected to price on Wednesday. The shares are expected to start trading on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges on Thursday.
The landmark IPO will likely price around the top end of the $26 to $29 per share range and the full overallotment option -- additional shares underwriters can sell to help stabilize the stock after it begins trading -- will likely be exercised, three people familiar with the matter said.
There is also "excess demand" for the $3 billion worth of preferred shares GM plans to sell, the sources said.
The strong response also bodes well for upcoming initial public offerings by other auto industry companies that restructured in bankruptcy, such as Chrysler and auto parts suppliers Delphi and Visteon, analysts said.
Just over a year after a politically unpopular $50 billion bailout that left the US Treasury with a 61 percent stake, GM filed to sell about $10 billion worth of common stock and $3 billion of preferred shares. Such an offering would mark the second-biggest US IPO ever after Visa Inc and one of the largest, globally.
The full overallotment could take the total IPO amount to as much as $15.65 billion. It would also cut the US Treasury's stake to just over 40 percent.