General Motors Co., the largest U.S. automaker, started a program to allow workers, retirees, dealers and directors in the U.S. and Canada to buy shares in its planned initial public offering, Bloomberg reported.

Participants can register for the program by mail postmarked by Oct. 19 or sign up online by Oct. 22, according to a website run by GM and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which will administer the program. Pete Ternes, a GM spokesman, confirmed the website’s authenticity.

The minimum investment for the program is expected to be $1,000, according to the website. The minimum and maximum number of shares that will be allowed is still being determined, the website said. The Detroit Free Press reported the worker-retiree share program earlier.

GM, 61 percent owned by the U.S. Treasury Department, will seek to raise $8 billion to $10 billion in an IPO in November, a smaller sale than the automaker originally targeted, two people familiar with the matter said in September. The price of the shares hasn’t been set.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. will lead the offering, according to a Sept. 23 regulatory filing. Barclays Plc, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Royal Bank of Canada and UBS AG were also listed as underwriters.

WASHINGTON – General Motors CEO Dan Akerson held an introductory private meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, spokesmen for the government and the automaker told Automotive News.

GM is expected to launch an initial public offering of its stock as early as next month at an undisclosed price. The U.S. Treasury owns about 61 percent of the automaker after spending about $50 billion to rescue it.

GM spokesman Greg Martin and a Treasury spokesman today described the meeting in New York City as a “meet and greet.”

“This is the first time their schedules matched,” Martin said in an e-mail.

A Treasury spokesman said the meeting “will be a general discussion on the state of the industry and the business.”

Neither spokesman would discuss details about the meeting after it concluded.

In addition to its plans to offer shares to the public, GM also is giving about 600,000 employees and retirees in the United States and Canada the chance to buy the shares.

Akerson, a longtime telecommunications industry executive who later headed buyouts at The Carlyle Group equity firm, was named GM’s CEO in August, when Ed Whitacre stepped down for a longer-term CEO to guide the company as it exits government ownership. Akerson had been a member of GM’s board since it emerged from bankruptcy in July 2009.

While Akerson has not commented directly on the IPO due to U.S. securities regulations, he said last month that the process of paying back taxpayers could take “several years.”

General Motors Co. is giving about 600,000 employees and retirees in the United States and Canada the chance to buy stock in the company’s upcoming initial public offering at the IPO price, reported Automotive News.

GM is offering the directed share program as part of an IPO scheduled for November.

In a letter dated Sept. 30 to employees and retirees, the automaker asked employees and retirees to pre-register their interest in the share purchase program online or via mail by October 15.

The letter says that the company has not determined a maximum or minimum number of shares that an employee or retiree can buy under the program.

The minimum investment is expected to be greater than $1,000, however, according to the letter obtained today by Automotive News.

GM has yet to determine the initial share price of its initial public offering.

Directed share programs are a common way for employees to buy stock in their employers.

GM spokesman Pete Ternes confirmed today that the letter had been sent. But he declined to give details because of regulations governing comments about the upcoming IPO.

Analysts believe the IPO could be one of the largest in recent history, allowing the U.S. government to recoup $8 billion – $10 billion of the more than $49.5 billion it spent to rescue the automaker.

The U.S. government owns about 61 percent of GM, and the Canadian and Ontario governments control 11.7 percent. An independent health care trust controlled by the UAW owns another 17.5 percent of the automaker.

Ternes said GM has received some feedback from employees and retirees that they had not received the letter as of today. He said the company would communicate to employees if an extension is allowed.

The program is being offered to salaried and hourly employees and retirees.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is administering the GM share program.

GM has about 54,000 UAW-represented hourly employees and nearly 400,000 UAW retirees.

American International Group Inc., the bailed-out insurer, is seeking as much as HK$115.3 billion ($14.9 billion) in an initial public offering of its Asia unit in Hong Kong, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The company plans to sell as many as 5.9 billion shares of AIA Group Ltd. at HK$18.38 to HK$19.68 each, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private. The offering represents a stake of about 49 percent of the company, the people said, which would value Hong Kong-based AIA at as much as $30.6 billion.

AIG is taking advantage of a gain in Hong Kong stocks to attempt what may become the city’s biggest-ever IPO, moving the insurer closer to repaying its $182.3 billion government bailout. The offering values AIA at a premium to European rivals, based on forecasts by the IPO arrangers.

“Many investors will have an interest in it because it’s a sizeable issue,” said Michiya Tomita, a Hong Kong-based fund manager at Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co., which oversees $65 billion globally. “In terms of growth prospects, the valuation is a little expensive because the company isn’t focusing on China.”

AIG has an option to sell more shares in AIA, taking the potential size of the IPO to $20.5 billion, a term sheet for the transaction sent to fund managers showed. That would make it the largest ever in Hong Kong, overtaking the $16 billion raised by Beijing-based Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. in 2006, data compiled by Bloomberg show. At the bottom end of the range, the company will be valued at $28.5 billion.

AIA had an embedded value of $22 billion at the end of May, according to an AIG filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Embedded value estimates a life insurer’s net worth excluding new business, using actuarial and investment return assumptions.

Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley of New York and Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG are among the banks arranging the sale. The stock is scheduled to start trading on Oct. 29.

AIA’s embedded value may grow to $25.8 billion next year, according to Sept. 24 reports by Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch & Co. The high end of the IPO price range values the company at 1.18 times its estimated 2011 embedded value.

China Life Insurance Co., the nation’s largest insurer, is valued at 2.1 times next year’s embedded value and European insurers trade at an average of 0.8 times, according to Merrill, which is also helping arrange the sale.

PARIS – Chrysler Group LLC’s initial public offering may be “relatively small” and in “chunks” so the U.S. automaker run by Fiat S.p.A. can establish a base market for its stock, the company’s top executive said, Bloomberg reported.

The automaker’s financial performance next year will support an IPO in the second half, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne told reporters today at the Paris auto show. He is also CEO of Fiat.

Marchionne is almost one year into a five-year plan to rebuild Chrysler after its bankruptcy last year. Fiat controls Chrysler with a 20 percent stake that can be increased by meeting certain milestones. The majority of the stock is held by a trust established to cover medical costs for union retirees.

“One of the options is to do an initial public offering that would involve a relatively small issue” then come back six to nine months later to do a wider distribution so the United Auto Workers’ trust can sell its shares, Marchionne said.

The UAW retiree trust holds 67.69 percent and the U.S. and Canadian governments hold a combined 12.31 percent.

“The primary objective of the IPO is to provide financial, long-term stability to Chrysler,” Marchionne said, so it may be more effective to sell stock in “chunks.”

General Motors Co. is seeking to raise $8 billion to $10 billion in an initial public offering in November, two people familiar with the situation said this month.

That’s a smaller target than the Detroit-based automaker earlier anticipated, because the U.S. Treasury, which owns 61 percent of GM, prefers a higher share price to a large offering, the people said.

Marchionne said Chrysler would seek to raise “by far” less than $8 billion.

He reiterated that Chrysler is ahead of plan with its financial performance for the year.

Chrysler’s U.S. vehicle sales rose 10 percent for the year through August compared to last year, according to the Automotive News data center. Total U.S. vehicle sales increased 8 percent during the period.

Chrysler may have led U.S. automakers with a 48 percent sales increase during September, according to the average of six analysts’ estimates surveyed by Bloomberg.

“We are in the process of finalizing the third quarter,” Marchionne said in an interview. “We are probably a big chunk of the year ahead compared to the plan we presented.”

Chrysler reported a first-half net loss of $369 million while posting operating profit of $326 million. The results exceeded the automaker’s guidance that operating results would be break-even to $200 million. Marchionne has signaled that profit and cash guidance will be upgraded after the third quarter. In August, he said the automaker would have a difficult time turning a net profit for the year.

WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department will audit General Motors Co.’s initial public stock offering and estimates that the stock must sell for $133.78 a share for the government to break even.

Neil Barofsky, the Treasury’s special inspector general, told Reuters news agency that he will watch over GM’s IPO — expected late this year — and said, “I expect it will be a broad inquiry.”

Barofsky, the government’s watchdog over the $700 billion Wall Street and auto industry bailout, said that “it’s important for us to do effective and quick audit work so we can learn the lessons from this IPO.”

As a result of the bailout, the government holds 304.13 million shares of GM common stock. It also holds $2.1 billion in preferred stock in the Detroit automaker, but does not expect to sell that stake during the IPO.

GM plans to sell up to $3 billion in mandatory convertible preferred stock to raise more cash for operations.

The Detroit automaker hopes to mount a worldwide roadshow soon after the Nov. 2 midterm elections to convince investors to buy its stock.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Barofsky in August to watch over the IPO to see that U.S. taxpayers get the “highest possible return” on their bailout investment.

He also asked the Treasury to investigate GM’s planned $3.5 billion acquisition of Texas-based subprime lender AmeriCredit. The company’s shareholders are to approve the tie-up Sept. 29.

The $133.78-per-share figure was disclosed in a two-page letter to Grassley that was obtained Wednesday by The Detroit News.

That would mean GM would have a market capitalization of around $70 billion. Some analysts have predicted that GM will be worth more than $100 per share.