General Motors Co GM.UL considered an Asian exchange for its historic return to the public markets, but ruled it out because it would have delayed the IPO, people familiar with the matter said.
GM, which filed plans for a dual listing in New York and Toronto this week, as recently as several weeks ago was also considering listing in Hong Kong to highlight its growing focus on China — now the world’s largest car market — and to attract the region’s growing pool of investors, the sources said.
That plan was ultimately scrapped because a Hong Kong listing would have pushed GM’s IPO beyond its targeted debut between late October and the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, sources said, asking not to be named because the preparations for the IPO are not public.
It was also unclear what the U.S. automaker would gain in terms of investors or trading liquidity and listing on multiple exchanges would have added cost and complexity to GM’s already complicated IPO, two of the sources said.
“I don’t think signaling goodwill toward Asia is likely to be a significant enough argument for all the cost and complexity. I don’t want to overstate the cost and complexity but it’s not insignificant,” one of the sources said.
The Hong Kong stock exchange requires three years of profitability or a large market capitalization and revenue in order to list.
