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- THE WEEK, Page 26BUSINESSPaper Profits
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- GM sets a new sales record, but it's not in the showroom
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- Sometimes it's a lot easier to sell stock than motorcars. On
- the eve of its annual meeting last week in Fort Wayne, Ind.,
- General Motors completed the largest new offering by a U.S.
- company, a worldwide sale of 55 million shares that will bring in
- more than $2.1 billion -- the equivalent of selling more than
- 131,000 cars and trucks. It was the fourth time this year that
- G.M. has gone into the public financial markets for a total of
- $5.3 billion, still well below the $7.09 billion the automotive
- giant lost in the North American market last year.
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- Skeptics also point out that there is a limit to such
- trips to the marketplace and that most of the money being raised
- is earmarked for G.M.'s financial obligations rather than new
- products and capital innovations. But investors are apparently
- hoping that a new management team assembled after last month's
- boardroom coup can turn fortunes around. If that happens, the
- betting is that G.M. can once again make money as fast as it has
- lost it since 1990.
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