Ally Financial IPO Starts on Bad Note for Taxpayers

By Paul Ausick Updated Apr 27, 3:35PM EDT · Published Apr 10, 10:10AM EDT

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Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) priced its initial public offering at $25 a share after markets closed on Wednesday. The IPO price was at the low end of the expected range. The company sold 95 million shares Thursday morning for gross proceeds of $2.38 billion.

The low-end pricing of the stock is just another poke in the eye to U.S. taxpayers. All the proceeds will be used to pay back the U.S. Treasury’s $17 billion bailout of the company known as GMAC back in 2008 when the financial crisis hit. Thursday’s sale reduces the federal government stake in the company from about 38% to around 14%.

Underwriters are Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital, which have an overallotment option on an additional 14.25 million shares.

One analyst at BTIG has already put a Buy recommendation on the bank’s stock with a price target of $31 a share, according to a report at TheStreet.com. That is arguable given that Ally failed its most recent Federal Reserve stress test and has set up a subsidiary on which the bank intends to shed all its bad loans.

Ally also has about $79 billion in remaining debt that the bank has to roll over constantly as the principal payments come due. From Ally’s point of view, if interest rates never rise about 0.25%, it is all right with the bank.

Shares opened down 3% at $24.25 and have since picked up slightly to $24.57.

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About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.