GM could have mortgaged its future final week.
On Wednesday, the automaker introduced that it might enhance its dividend and purchase again $10 billion price of its shares, successfully erasing this yr’s web earnings after which some. The transfer happy shareholders, with GM’s inventory buying and selling about 10% larger than earlier than the monetary engineering strikes had been introduced.
However shareholders’ delight could also be fleeting. Income from gross sales of fossil gasoline automobiles are purported to bankroll the transition to electrical automobiles, GM president Mark Reuss stated final yr. That doesn’t look like the case anymore, partially as a result of the corporate is determined to prop up its share value, which is identical because it was 5 years in the past.
CEO Mary Barra in all probability thinks the market is being unfair provided that the corporate has, except for a couple of quarters, been worthwhile for greater than a decade. The share buybacks are undoubtedly a ploy to wrench GM out of its rut.
Any enhance the buybacks give to the share value will solely paper over the possible motive shareholders are lukewarm on GM: The corporate lacks the flexibility to execute on its plans.