NEW YORK – General Motors Co., the automaker 61 percent owned by the U.S. government, is seeking to raise $12 billion to $16 billion in an initial public offering, a person familiar with the plan told Bloomberg.

The more than 500-page document, called an S-1, is expected to be filed Friday, though it may not happen until Monday, said the person, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The exact value of the offering may not be fully detailed in the registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said the person.

The IPO would be the second-largest in U.S. history, behind Visa Inc.’s $19.7 billion initial offering in March 2008. The share sale is also the first step in freeing the Detroit-based automaker from government ownership, which CEO Ed Whitacre has pushed for after GM’s $50 billion taxpayer bailout in the wake of its bankruptcy in June 2009.

“After the restructuring, I expect GM to once again be a leading company on the U.S. stock market,” said Kim Yong Tae, who helps manage $2.9 billion equivalent of assets at Yurie Asset Management Co. in Seoul. “The U.S. government has shown a strong will to revive GM. It’s a stock I want to add to my portfolio.”

GM has secured a $5 billion revolving line of credit from a group of at least 15 banks as of Wednesday night New York time, said the person. More than half are named in the draft of the document as underwriters, including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Credit Suisse Group AG.

Selim Bingol, a GM spokesman, declined to comment on details of the IPO.

“We will do an IPO when conditions are right for the company and in the markets,” he said in an e-mail.

Most of the shares offered would come from the U.S. Treasury, the person said. The aim is to sell a fifth of the government’s 304 million shares, two people familiar with the plan said in June. That would reduce the Treasury’s holdings to less than 50 percent.

The automaker may sell a small number of new shares, the person familiar with the plans said yesterday. The Canadian government, the United Auto Workers union’s retiree medical trust and the estate of the bankrupt predecessor General Motors Corp. haven’t decided whether to participate in the IPO, the person said.

The document will describe the old GM, its restructuring in bankruptcy and liabilities facing the new company, the person said.

GM will report its second quarter profit today, and industry analysts are looking for strong results to set the stage for the IPO even as consumer confidence wanes.

DETROIT – General Motors Co. has secured a $5 billion credit facility in a step that clears the way for a return to the public markets later this year, two people familiar with the deal told The Wall Street Journal.

Banks including Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan committed up to $500 million a piece to the credit line, these people said.

A revolving credit facility, which allows a company to borrow for any reason, would bolster GM’s balance sheet and provide a financial cushion should the company’s recovery plans hit a snag.

With the backup funding in place, GM is prepared to file registration papers for an initial public offering as soon as Friday, the people familiar with the matter said.

Ten banks are contributing to the credit facility, but there is a chance more could sign on as demand for the loan was high, a person familiar with the deal said. The facility would likely remain at $5 billion, but the individual amounts could drop, this person said.

Reuters first reported that GM finalized a deal on a credit facility.

The offering is expected later this year and will allow the U.S. government to begin selling its $50 billion stake in the auto maker.

The U.S. Treasury is expected to opt for a sale of at least $10 billion of its shares in the company, but the initial amount remains in question, a person familiar with the situation said.

GM Chairman Edward E. Whitacre is pushing for Treasury to offload as large a stake in the company as possible in an effort to shed the stigma of being owned by the U.S. government. Mr. Whitacre last week told reporters he wanted the government out of the business entirely and is frustrated with the “Government Motors” label critics have placed on GM.

Treasury is taking a more conservative approach to the size of the first sale of shares, looking to avoid diluting the value by putting out too many at once, according to people familiar with the situation.

On Thursday, GM is expected to report a second quarter profit in excess of $1 billon, the company’s strongest performance since at least the second quarter of 2004.

The strong results will be part of GM’s campaign to convince investors it’s a good bet after a bankruptcy that wiped out billions in debt, obligations and excess workers, brands and factories.

For GM, a second consecutive quarterly profit by would mark a turning point for GM, which essentially stopped making money from 2005 through 2009 and has been living off the auto bailout since then.

General Motors Co. said it would replace its chief executive with a board member lacking automotive experience but well-regarded on Wall Street, a move whose timing was surprising and appears designed to pave the way for the car maker’s return to the public stock market, The Wall Street Journal reported.

GM said Daniel Akerson, a 61-year-old director known for his work as a telecommunications dealmaker, will take over as CEO on Sept. 1. He will replace Edward E. Whitacre Jr., a former AT&T Inc. chairman and CEO brought out of retirement by the Obama administration a year ago to lead the company out of its U.S.-financed bankruptcy reorganization.

Whitacre, 68, will remain chairman until December, when he will cede that title to Akerson as well.

The leadership change was announced after GM reported net income of $1.3 billion for the second quarter, on the strength of rising vehicle sales, especially of trucks, and firmer pricing in North America. It follows a profit of $865 million in the first quarter, and is GM’s best showing since 2004′s second quarter.

The change atop the nation’s largest carmaker is part of a plan put in place by GM’s board over the last few weeks to enable the company to present a clear picture of its management team to investors as it looks to return to the public markets and allow the U.S. to cash out its 61 percent ownership stake.

Whitacre has long said he planned to step down after GM offers shares to the public.

“At this stage of my career, it was obvious that I was not going to be at GM for the long haul,” Whitacre said. “This is something the board and I have been contemplating, literally since I joined GM.”

People familiar with the matter said the move was decided by GM’s board without input from the U.S. government, which put more than $50 billion into GM to save the company.

Whitacre’s departure, however, was announced as some tension was building between the company and Washington, people familiar with the matter said. The Obama administration would like GM to hold a stock offering soon, perhaps even before the midterm elections in November, while GM hasn’t committed to such a timetable.

A GM IPO would likely give President Barack Obama grounds to claim that the bailouts of GM and Chrysler Group LLC are working, especially in key election races in the Republican-leaning states where skepticism of the bailout runs high.

The U.S. is expected to sell at least $10 billion of its shares in the company in an IPO, said a person familiar with the situation.

Last week Whitacre publicly expressed a preference for taking more time to prepare for a stock offering, and for having the government sell a major stake in the company so that GM can shed the image of being on government support.

Akerson, who has served as a managing director at the buyout firm Carlyle Group since July 2009, is known as a decisive, hard-nosed and often unforgiving manager—qualities that appealed to members of the Obama administration’s auto task force when they recruited him to join GM’s board last summer. Akerson declined to comment.

General Motors Co. said Thursday it made $1.33 billion in the second quarter, a sign it’s getting healthier as it prepares to sell stock to the public, The Associated Press reported.

It was the second straight quarterly profit for GM, which made $865 million in the first quarter.

CEO Ed Whitacre said last week that the company is eager to sell its shares in an initial public offering so it can end its dependence on the government and pay off $43.3 billion in bailout funds that were converted into a majority stake in the company.

Whitacre said the company plans to file paperwork in the near future for the IPO. But it’s unclear if the recent record of profits — $2.2 billion for the first half of 2010 — is enough to convince investors. GM lost $88 billion in the five years before it filed for bankruptcy protection last June.

GM’s second-quarter revenue totaled $33.2 billion, up 5.3 percent from the first quarter on growing sales in every region except Europe. In the U.S., GM saw strong sales of new and redesigned models like the Chevrolet Equinox wagon and Buick LaCrosse sedan.

GM said it earned $2.55 per share for the quarter. GM didn’t report second-quarter results last year because it spent part of the quarter in bankruptcy protection, but on Thursday, GM said it lost $12.9 billion in the second quarter of 2009, or $21.12 per share.

So far, GM’s results are a reversal of fortune from 2009, when it lost $4.3 billion from July 10, the day it exited bankruptcy court, through Dec. 31. Before the first-quarter results, GM hadn’t reported a profit since the second quarter of 2007.

GM said it ended the quarter with $32.5 billion in cash, down from $36 billion in the first quarter.

GM has been working to streamline operations and slash costs. It has shed four brands, changed leadership and last week announced its U.S. dealership network would number 4,500, about 25 percent smaller than it was in early 2009.

But it still faces hurdles. GM’s U.S. sales rose 14 percent in the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2009, according to AutoData Corp. That was slightly less than the average industry increase of 17 percent. GM had the highest incentive spending of any major automaker at $3,691 per vehicle, almost $1,000 more than the industry average, according to Edmunds.com.

GM has also relied heavily on sales to rental-car, government and corporate fleets, which are less profitable than sales to individual customers. Retail sales — or sales to individuals — were up 11 percent industry wide through June, but up only 1 percent at GM.

GM is the last of the Detroit automakers to report second-quarter results. Ford Motor Co. made $2.6 billion, its fifth straight quarterly profit. Chrysler Group LLC, which got $15.5 billion in federal aid, narrowed its second-quarter loss to $172 million.

The U.S. government has owned a 61 percent stake in GM since the company left bankruptcy protection.

“We want the government out. Period,” Whitacre said during an auto conference in northern Michigan. “We don’t want to be known as Government Motors.”

GM has already paid $6.7 billion in government loans. Whitacre said GM wants to sell its stock all at once, rather than in batches, which would end the government’s ownership more quickly.

But the U.S. government and GM’s other stakeholders — a United Auto Workers health-care trust, which owns 17.5 percent of the company; the Canadian government, which owns 11.7 percent; and old bondholders, who own 9.8 percent — will ultimately decide how much of their equity to sell.

A GM IPO could be the largest such sale in U.S. history. It would have to bring in $70 billion to pay back all of GM’s stakeholders; some analysts expect the IPO will be worth at least than much. That would be more than Ford’s market value of roughly $44 billion, but less than the total value of Toyota’s shares of about $113 billion.

It would also dwarf a 2008 offering by Visa Inc. that netted nearly $18 billion.

GM is taking steps to boost its U.S. sales. In July the company said it would buy AmeriCredit Corp., an automotive financing company that serves the subprime market, for $3.5 billion. Though it was partners with Ally Financial Inc., formerly known as GMAC, GM previously lacked a so-called captive financing company, which can offer better rates to customers than outside financial sources.

GM also has several new vehicles in the pipeline. Its new Chevrolet Cruze, due out next month, is GM’s latest bid to make a desirable — and profitable — small car. Later this year, the company will begin selling the Chevrolet Volt, a $41,000 electric car with a small gas engine that extends its range.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Eager to get out from under government control, GM expects to sell its stock in one swoop when it offers shares to the public sometime later this year, its CEO said Thursday.

Some experts had expected General Motors Co. to sell only a partial stake at first, followed by several smaller sales, The Associated Press reported, but Ed Whitacre told reporters at an auto conference Thursday, “Our anticipation is we’d roll it out there all at once.”

Ever since the Obama administration gave the automaker a $50 billion dollar survival loan last year, many drivers have scorned the company and bought cars from rivals. Even though GM has cut costs, changed leadership, and reported its first quarterly profit since 2007, the resentment will linger as long as taxpayers have a 61 percent stake in the company.

“We want the government out. Period,” Whitacre said. “We don’t want to be known as Government Motors.”

Although Whitacre wouldn’t say when GM wants to sell the stock or when it would file paperwork with regulators to start the official process, he repeatedly said GM wants the sale as soon as possible. The paperwork, he said, would be submitted in the near future.

GM spokesmen later said the decision on how much equity to sell will be made by current stockholders, the U.S. and Canadian governments, a United Auto Workers health care trust and former bondholders.

Whitacre said the company could have a successful IPO sometime after GM reports second-quarter earnings next week. The earnings numbers, he said, would be impressive. GM’s business already looks healthier. It reported a net income of $865 million in the first quarter.

“You’d have to say our future is pretty bright,” Whitacre said.

A General Motors IPO could be the largest such sale in U.S. history, Whitacre said, and demand for the shares should be good whenever they are sold.

It could be worth more than $70 billion — enough to pay back its government aid —and far bigger than a 2008 offering by Visa Inc. that netted nearly $18 billion, experts said.

Still, there are risks in doing a one-shot IPO.

The shares would sell for less if placed on the market in one large batch, experts said. Normally, larger companies sell a portion of their shares first, then further establish their earnings and management history as they offer the rest, said Linda Killian, portfolio manager of the initial public offering fund at Renaissance Capital in Greenwich, Conn.

Also, the climate for IPOs is poor, said Scott Sweet, senior managing partner of IPO Boutique in Tampa, Fla., which advises investors on IPOs.

Sweet said he would advise GM to wait until next year when unemployment is expected to drop, housing picks up and the government could have a plan to deal with its massive debt.

“I know some of the best deals in the pipelines have been held up,” Sweet said. “They don’t want to take a fraction of what they could get in a better market.”

Sweet said GM may be pushing ahead for political reasons, so President Obama and Democratic congressional candidates can tout a successful IPO in their campaigns ahead of November elections.

Democrats could use a successful stock offering as proof that the billions in federal aid saved and created jobs, and the government was repaid. Obama appeared at two Detroit factories last week and in Chicago Thursday to tout the success of the unpopular auto industry bailout.

But Whitacre denied that GM is under pressure from the Obama administration to sell shares before the elections.

“We’re trying to not tie it to any elections or anything like that, truly,” Whitacre said. “We just want it to be right.”

Last week, United Auto Workers President Bob King said that GM will file the IPO paperwork in mid-August. The union later said King was basing his statement on media accounts.

Whitacre also said Thursday that the automaker is looking to start up an idled factory to meet higher demand for its products, but he gave no specifics. The company has placed on “standby” two closed factories in Spring Hill, Tenn., and Janesville, Wis.

GM, he said, will have a U.S. dealership network of around 4,500, about 25 percent smaller than it was in early 2009 before the company entered bankruptcy protection.

DETROIT — General Motors said Friday that it is boosting production capacity for its new Chevrolet Volt due to strong public interest in the electric car that goes on sale this year, reported The Associated Press.

GM will now have a production capacity of 45,000 vehicles in 2012, up from previous plans for 30,000 vehicles.

The automaker made the announcement as President Barack Obama toured the Volt production facility in Detroit. The federal government sank $50 billion into GM as part of the broader rescue of the auto industry, giving taxpayers a majority stake in the nation’s largest auto company.

The Volt, priced at $41,000, can go 340 miles on a single battery charge, according to GM. The vehicle is powered purely by the battery in the first 40 miles, and then uses a small tank of gasoline to create an additional charge for the remaining 300 miles.

Chevrolet dealers began taking orders this week for the 2011 model.

GM recently raised the number of launch markets for the Volt from three to seven.