General Motors Co. is planning to begin formal presentations of its initial public offering to prospective investors on Nov. 3, the day after U.S. mid-term Congressional elections, Reuters says. Previous news reports suggested GM might go public as soon as late October.
The news service cites unidentified sources who say the later date would give investors a chance to peruse the company’s third-quarter financial results. GM has posted two consecutive quarterly profits, but analysts say a longer track record would inspire more confidence.
Reuters says GM executives will conduct a two-week road show. If the U.S. stock market is in good shape, investment bankers expect to price the issue on Nov. 17. GM shares would begin trading on New York and Toronto stock exchanges the next day.
That timing would squelch conspiracy theories that the Obama administration is forcing the company to hold its IPO before the election to allow Democrats to boast on the campaign trail about the success of the GM bailout.
Aston Martin now plans to sell its upcoming Cygnet city car, which is based on Toyota Motor Corp.’s IQ minicar, in the U.S., Automotive News says. The luxury U.K. marque previously said the Cygnet would be sold only in Europe, where it debuts later this year.
Citing unnamed company officials, AN says Aston Martin will bring the Cygnet to the U.S. in 2012. At launch the vehicle will be powered by a 99-hp, 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine. An all-electric version is expected in 2013, according to the newspaper.
Toyota will ship base iQ modules from Japan to Aston Martin’s Gaydon, U.K., plant where they will be transformed into Cygnets. Although its mechanical components will remain the same as the iQ, the Cygnet will get a dramatically more luxurious interior.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao suggests that Japanese companies with operations in China could avoid further strikes there by paying workers a higher wage.
Wen’s blunt suggestion came as a reply to a veiled threat by Japan Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada that more than 100 strikes at Japanese-owned factories in China this year might prompt some companies shut down operations in the country.
Strikes idled several Japanese-owned car parts operations in China earlier this year, disrupting local vehicle assembly operations at Honda, Toyota and others. Workers won raises of 20% to 70%, boosting their monthly pay to roughly $250. Premier Wen says demands for higher pay are “understandable” after two years of pay freezes during the global economic crisis. Japan says it may again raise the issue with China later.
The minimum wage has been increased in 20 Chinese provinces so far this year. China’s central government has avoided intervening in the strikes, but it also has encouraged employers to settle quickly, in part to thwart any movement to organize independent labor unions. Analysts say Beijing also believes that a gradual increase in pay will help spur China’s economic growth.
Toyota Motor Corp., for one, insists its pay is “appropriate” in China. But analysts tell The Wall Street Journal that Japanese companies often pay less than Western companies do for hourly and salaried workers in China.
Vehicle manufacturing groups in France, Italy and Spain say new-car sales in those markets dropped sharply in August as job worries and fading scrappage incentives kept buyers away.
In France, car sales dropped 10% to about 99,500 units compared to August 2009. That country’s scrappage payments have shrunk to €500 and will disappear at the end of the year. The country’s automakers’ group says sales by PSA Peugeot Citroen SA and Renault SA fell 9% and 4%, respectively.
In Italy, sales declined for the fifth consecutive month, plunging 19% to a 17-year low of 68,700 units. In Spain, demand plummeted 24% to 44,600 vehicles, its worst level in more than two decades.
