General Motors Co., Detroit, contributed 60.6 million shares to U.S. pension plans, completing a $6 billion contribution the automaker announced in October.
Of the total, 40.4 million shares were contributed to the plan for hourly workers and 20.2 million shares to the salaried pension plan, the automaker said Friday in a statement.
Based on late Friday trading of $38.22 a share, the GM stock contribution was valued at $2.32 billion.
GM’s pension obligations could be funded as soon as 2013, CFO Chris Liddell said in a Tuesday interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The U.S. plans were underfunded by $17.1 billion at the end of 2009.
Mr. Liddell said it is “reasonable to think we’re in an interest rate-increasing environment over the next three to five years,” which would help GM to fund its pension. He said GM “is not relying on that.”
The “first call” on GM’s cash is engineering and marketing, he said, while repaying debt and making pension plan contributions are secondary.
GM had $101.54 billion in pension assets as of Sept. 30, including $87.8 billion in defined benefit assets, as of Sept. 30, according to Pensions & Investments data.
