On the General Motors S-1 Filing

Last night, we were treated to the filing of the General Motors S-1 notice, the precursor to an eventual IPO.  The timing is perfect for the Democrats to claim victory in their efforts to “save the auto industry” going into the November mid-terms.  The citizens of Detroit, America’s Own Little Sarajevo, shall rejoice and dance in the streets.  Or not.

My favorite part of the filing was the “Selling Shareholders” section in which The United States Treasury department is listed as having a 60% stake ready for distribution.  A farce of Shakespearean proportions.

First I’ll drop some data on you, then I’ll make with the funny…

What does the actual underlying “company” look like these days?  MarketBeat’s Matt Phillips has some numbers (as of June 30th):

Cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet: $31.5 billion

Outstanding debt: $8.2 billion

U.S. dealers: Approximately 5,200, expected to decline to about 4,500 by the end of 2010.

Non-dealership U.S. footprint: 117 locations in 26 states and 93 cities or towns in the U.S.

North American manufacturing facilities: 59, down from 71 at ‘old’ GM in December 2008.

Employees: 208,000, of whom 144,000 (69%) were hourly employees and 64,000 (31%) were salaried employees.

Union representation: 53,000 U.S. employees (or 67%) were represented by unions.

Retirees: 400,000 U.S. hourly and 117,000 U.S. salaried retirees, surviving spouses and others.

Sounds super exciting.  Last night I set the Blogger Faculty Lounge ablaze with some of my offhand remarks on the forthcoming deal, please take them in jest – in truth I barely care about GM at all…

* Each IPO unit of GM consists of 1 common share, 2 warrants and a bowl of soup

* GM’s Board post-IPO: Ronald McDonald, Krusty, Bozo, Chuckles, Jack Welch and Captain Kangaroo

* Underwriters for the GM IPO reportedly ordering lipstick by the metric ass-ton

* GM due diligence meeting to be held at a bombed out Quizno’s in Kalamazoo

* Chrysler is also going public.  Ticker will be CHR on the Calcutta Exchange, will trade alongside human teeth

* This IPO will be GM’s greatest engineering feat in 50 years