UAW to Raise $1.78B From Ford Warrants
(Ford-UAW trust story updated with stock closing prices and insert on another recent, large warrant auction)
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The sale of all of its Ford (F) - Get Report common stock warrants is expected to help the United Auto Workers (UAW) Retiree Medical Benefits Trust raise about $1.78 billion.
The UAW trust's secondary public offering of about 362 million warrants to purchase Ford common stock was priced at $5 per warrant through an auction that took place on Mar. 30. The warrants represent all of the warrants the trust holds.
The UAW trust will receive all of the net proceeds from the offering; Ford will receive none of it.
The warrants have been listed for trading on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "F WS" and were expected to commence trading at 9:30 a.m. on Mar. 31.
Based on available data, proceeds from the Ford warrant sale would exceed that of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's offerings of warrants to purchase common stock of
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Report
.
The Department of the Treasury announced on March 4 that it priced a secondary public offering of about 150 million Bank of America warrants at $8.35 per warrant and a secondary public offering of about 122 million warrants to purchase at $2.55 per warrant. The Treasury expected to net proceeds of about $1.5 billion from the offerings.
"These proceeds provide an additional return to the American taxpayer from Treasury's investment in the company beyond the dividend payments it received on the related preferred stock," the Treasury said in a statement.
Ford stock ended Wednesday's trading session down 5.6% to $12.50, while peer
Daimler
( DAI) edged up 1% to $47.
Ford rival
Toyota
(TM) - Get Report
fell 1% to $80.40. Ahead of a release this week, the company's U.S. sales chief operating officer James Lentz told reporters Tuesday that Toyota's sales rose 30 to 35% this month, according to
Bloomberg
. Bloomberg data indicates that U.S. auto sales may have occurred at their fastest in March since the 2009 "cash for clunkers" program, aided by Toyota's aggressive incentive programs to lure back customers amid its massive global recalls and the ensuing competing discounts from rivals.
-- Reported by Andrea Tse in New York
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