DETROIT- General Motors Co. will return to the Standard & Poor’s 100 and 500 indices, officials announced Monday.
The Detroit-based automaker will replace H. J. Heinz Co. after the close of trading on Thursday, which is the same day of GM’s annual shareholders meeting in Detroit.
“The GM team has been working very hard to earn the business of customers around the world and to win the confidence of investors, and rejoining the S&P 500 shows we’re very much on track,” said GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson, in a statement.
The move comes after 3G Capital and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which has invested heavily in GM, revealed plans to take Heinz private.
To join the S&P 500, which includes 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy, companies must be worth at least $4 billion, have four consecutive profitable quarters and a number of other factors. A committee selects the companies in the S&P 500 so they are representative of the industries in the United States economy.
GM’s stock has been steadily climbing to above its $33 initial offering price for the first time in two years following the U.S. Treasury announcing a plan in December to sell its stock in the Detroit-based automaker as part of the 2008-2009 auto bailout, .
GM’s stock closed Monday up .53 cents to $34.42 a share. As of 6:20 p.m., the price continued to climb to about $35.60 a share during after hours trading.
Following GM’s first-quarter results, financial analysts said they expected GM to return to the indexes.
Since 2012, GM has accomplished a number of company milestones, including reacquiring Ally Financial Inc., which helps give the company more control over lending and leasing to potential customers; de-risking its pension plan by $29 billion for salaried employees and retirees; achieving 13-consecutive profitable quarters; and reacquiring 200 million shares of common stock from the U.S. Treasury Department, which plans to exit the automaker by March 2014.
Michael Wayland, MLive.
