NEW YORK/DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co took a important step toward repaying a controversial taxpayer-funded bailout by declaring plans with a view to a landmark stock offering that represents a critical test for the Obama management of an estate.

The automaker said it planned to list the shares on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange in an initial public offering that comes amid a still-weak global emporium for cars that is vulnerable to a further downturn.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup Inc esteem been selected as the lead underwriters for what is expected to re~ one of the biggest global IPOs.

The long-running confidential preparations since the IPO were dubbed "Project Dawn" by the assign places to of bankers, Treasury officials and GM executives led by Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell.

GM's commencing filing with U.S. securities regulators did not say how numerous shares would be sold or give an expected price range since the IPO. The IPO could raise up to $20 billion, admitting analysts cautioned that its size depends on still-untested investor requirement for a restructured automaker with only two consecutive quarters of profits.

"I put on't think this is a good time to be going general body of mankind," said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group. "It's other thing political than practical."

Trading in GM shares is expected to disturb between late October and the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on November 25, according to vulgar herd involved in the process. A stock offering in late October would rascally trading would start just before the November congressional elections.

Government officials and GM executives be the subject of repeatedly denied any link with the elections.

The Obama administration wants to have existence able to cast the $50 billion GM bailout as a fiscal success in the face of public skepticism and Republican political diversity.

The 102-year-old onetime blue chip is expected to return to the NYSE under the "GM" ticker symbol it had control the government-funded bankruptcy.

Adding a stock listing in Toronto underscores the role the governments of Canada and Ontario played viewed like junior partners to the U.S. Treasury in keeping GM from discharge.

GM Chief Executive Ed Whitacre, who steps down at the ~le of September, has said the automaker needs to distance itself from command ownership and the label "Government Motors" to build moment in its turnaround.

"I just think that the risk of failure through the IPO is bigger than the risk of being known being of the kind which Government Motors," said Brad Coulter, a restructuring specialist at O'Keefe & Associates.

PART OF IPO TO RAISE CAPITAL

Treasury before-mentioned it would not include any of its preferred shares in the IPO and did not signify how long it would take to shed its stake.

The U.S. Treasury plans to vend about 20 percent of the 304 million GM shares it holds, reducing its bet in the top U.S. automaker to under 50 percent, sources desire said.

GM does not plan to sell new common stock in the IPO unless plans to issue preferred stock that would generate proceeds for the automaker. Such some offering is a less-risky form of equity that could captivate dividend and growth fund investors.

Although bankruptcy eliminated about $40 billion in unsecured transgression and other obligations for GM, the automaker still needs funds to restructure its cash-losing Opel unit in Europe and address a pension shortfall of concerning $26 billion.

GM has posted two consecutive quarters of service after slashing costs and debt in bankruptcy and dropping the Pontiac, Saab, Hummer and Saturn brands.

The U.S. rule currently owns almost 61 percent of GM after converting $43 billion of the $50 billion in funding to the automaker into impartiality.

The total value of the GM stock offering would be precarious. For U.S. taxpayers to recover the $43 billion invested in GM, the place of traffic value of the automaker would have to be near $70 billion.

After the offering, the U.S. Treasury and Canada will no longer have the in accordance with duty to designate board nominees. Treasury named four directors in July 2009, including Dan Akerson, who was named while Whitacre's replacement earlier in August.

However, GM also declared the U.S. Treasury would continue to influence executive appointments and indemnity, its business strategy, employee and union decisions and debt and right issuances after the IPO.

GM said risks for potential investors included a allay-weak global market for cars that could be vulnerable to a more distant downturn and the pressure it faces to roll out new models from cutting back on development spending in recent years.

Borrowing a boy-servant from the turnaround strategy that helped lift Ford Motor Co, GM before-mentioned in its filing that it aimed to shift more than moiety of sales volume to global platforms by 2014.

That would token an increase from about 17 percent now and allow GM to slit costs and reduce complexity in its manufacturing operations.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley has asked a particular Treasury Department watchdog for an analysis of the GM IPO and in what condition much money would be returned to taxpayers.

Bankers and credit analysts esteem offered a case for valuing GM as high as $80 billion, given projections from expected 2011 turn into money flow and comparisons with rival Ford.

Ford, the only U.S. automaker to take avoided bankruptcy, has a market capitalization of just over $40 billion. Japan's Toyota Motor Corp, that tops GM in global sales, has a value of about $121 billion.

Analysts know GM as being in the early stages of a turnaround, helped through sharply lower costs, recovering sales in the United States and shooting in overseas markets, led by China.

Despite the company's progress, it smooth faces hurdles restructuring its money-losing Opel unit, which is struggling in a quiet European auto market.

GM's 8.375 percent bonds suitable in 2033 were little changed after the filing at 35.375 cents up~ the dollar, according to MarketAxess data.

Those bonds issued by the pre-bankruptcy GM are being traded as a speculative play on the impartiality in the post-IPO GM. Bondholders who had been owed $27 billion received a 10 percent equity stake in the restructured GM through the insolvency.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin in New York and David Bailey and Kevin Krolicki in Detroit, extra reporting by Ben Klayman, Bernie Woodall, Soyoung Kim, Rodrigo Campos, Dena Aubin, Chuck Mikolajczak, Jonathan Spicer, Liana B. Baker, Jennifer Kwan, John Crawley, Dan Wilchins and Walden Siew; editing by John Wallace, Matthew Lewis and Gerald E. McCormick)