General Motors has headed off a potentially divisive proxy fight by agreeing to buy back $5 billion in stock by the end of next year. The move announced today is part of a deal with Harry Wilson, a former member of the Government task force that restructured GM coming out of its 2009 bankruptcy. In exchange, Wilson agreed to withdraw his hostile candidacy for the Detroit automaker’s board of directors.
Wilson had accused GM of hoarding cash to the detriment of shareholders and had sought an USD 8 billion buyback. GM, which had $25.2 billion in cash at the end of last year, now says it will maintain a cash balance of $20 million and aim to keep its investment-grade status. The share repurchase will begin immediately and finish before the end of 2016. Investors appeared to like the announcement. GM shares rose $1.01, or 2.7 per cent, to $ 37.85 in premarket trading on Monday.
Negotiations with Wilson’s group had been going on for about two weeks and culminated during the weekend, CEO Mary Barra said today. She wouldn’t say much about the talks or whether Wilson was resistant to a smaller stock buyback than initially demanded. The company also talked with other major shareholders, who agreed with the buyback, she said.
Barra indicated that the buyback might have come without Wilson’s prodding. “We were on a path to do this anyway,” she said today. GM announced a 20 per cent dividend increase when it released fourth-quarter and full-year numbers last month, and Chief Financial Officer Chuck Stevens said further returns to shareholders were under consideration for the second half of the year. Combined, the two moves will cost the company $10 billion by the end of 2016.
Stevens said today that the $20 billion cash reserve is high enough for GM to withstand the costs of its ignition switch recall and any potential economic downturn. The company, he said, had always stated that it planned to keep a $20 billion to $ 25 billion reserve. Because of efficiencies and cost cuts, the company could look at drawing that down even further, he said.