General Motors was expected to file the prospectus for its much-anticipated Initial Public Offering Friday. But it looks like the announcement that CEO Ed Whitacre is on his way out has delayed that filing.
Whitacre announced Thursday that he would be leaving the automaker in September, after guiding it through restructuring and restoring it to profitability. He’ll be replaced by Dan Akerson, lately of the private equity giant Carlyle Group and an appointee to the GM board by the Treasury Department when the government took its 60 percent stake in the automaker.
Akerson, like Whitacre, comes to running a car company without auto industry experience. Both men made their marks in telecom.
Reuters reports that sources say the IPO filing will be delayed to take into account the change at the top.
The GM IPO, through which the automaker plans to pay back the government, is expected this fall, and would mark a major victory for President Barack Obama, who forged ahead with a bailout in the face of significant political opposition.
And opposition remains. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley wants a probe of the IPO to ensure that the public will get top dollar when GM sells stocks again.
I certainly sympathize with that opposition; no one likes to see the government come to the rescue of a private enterprise, especially one mismanaged for decades as GM was. But it’s also hard to argue that the nation isn’t better off for having saved an industrial giant, as long as we get our money back.
There are even auto dealers now clamoring for more product from GM. Who would have thought that could happen a year ago?
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