General Motors Co, saved by the Obama administration with a $50 billion bailout, is making more money than it has in its history, adding jobs and gaining market share. It’s still a headache for Barack Obama.
GM closed yesterday at $20.70 a share, less than half the $53 price that the U.S. Treasury Department needs to break even. Since Dec. 19, when the shares closed at their lowest price since an initial public offering last year, the shares have risen for three straight days. The stock still needs to rally almost 50 percent to reach $30 a share, the minimum price the Treasury Department would consider for a secondary offering, said three people familiar with the matter.
That puts Obama in a quandary. When Republicans nominate a candidate in August, the government will probably either still own a substantial portion of GM or will have sold the stock at a loss that could be more than $10 billion. Obama’s opponents can criticize him either way, said Dan Ikenson, an economist at the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank.
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