GM at work on IPO filing but not ready yet: CEO

General Motors Co has begun work on an initial public offering of stock that could be the largest ever for the U.S. market, the automaker's Chief Executive Ed Whitacre said on Thursday.

It was the first time the top U.S. automaker has confirmed it was readying an IPO, an event that would mark its return as a public company and reduce the U.S. government's majority ownership just over a year after GM's bankruptcy and a controversial $50 billion bailout.

Whitacre, who was attending an auto industry event in northern Michigan, also said GM would detail second-quarter results next week showing that the restructured company is making money despite an anemic rebound in the U.S. economy.

"We are working on an S-1," Whitacre told Reuters, referring to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission registration statement required for a securities offering.

"I don't know when we are going to be able to file it because we still have a lot to do. It's not in the 'way, way out there,' but we still have a lot to do," he said.

The automaker has been lining up bankers for a stock offering that will give the U.S. Treasury an opportunity to reduce its 61 percent ownership stake.

People with knowledge of that process, who could not be named because the preparations remain private, had said GM's initial target was to complete the regulatory paperwork for an IPO by the middle of August.

'WE WANT THE GOVERNMENT OUT'

But Whitacre said it would take longer to prepare an IPO to take the U.S. government to a minority ownership position and allow GM to distance itself from lingering consumer anger with its unpopular bailout.

"We want the government out, period. We don't want to be known as Government Motors," he said.

If GM were able to complete a stock offering by November, that would also provide the Obama administration with a sign of progress in its message that its unprecedented intervention in the U.S. auto industry has been a success.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama visited a Ford plant in Chicago, his second visit to U.S. auto plants in two weeks.

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