General Motors' (GM) stock is seeing significant interest from fund managers recently. Last quarter, two of the Wall Street's savviest investors, Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) and George Soros (Trades,Portfolio) increased their stake in the company. Warren Buffett (Trades,Portfolio) now holds 41 million shares of the company, while George Soros (Trades, Portfolio) holds ~3.86 million shares and more than 1 million call options. In addition to them, hedge fund managers David Tepper (Trades, Portfolio) of Appaloosa Management, Kyle Bass (Trades,Portfolio) of Hayman Capital Management also own significant stake in the company.
David Tepper and Kyle Bass along with firms HG Vora and Taconic Capital are trying to elect Harry Wilson to the company's board. Together, these four investors own ~2.1 percent of General Motors' shares. Wilson knows the auto business well and was tapped by President Barack Obama to restructure GM in its U.S.-backed bankruptcy in 2009. He intends to nominate himself for a seat on the board of General Motors Co. and propose an $8 billion stock buyback. At current valuations, this amounts to 13.33% of General Motor's outstanding shares.
However, it seems like Warren Buffet is not onboard and he supported GM's current CEO Mary Barra in his today's interview with CNBC. He also opposed Harry Wilson's candidature for GM's board. "I totally disagree with the idea of putting somebody on the board who has an option on some other people's stock which is only good for two years," Buffett said on CNBC. "The idea of trying to do something now that gets a little pop in the stock is just - should not be on her (Mary Barra's) agenda or the shareholders' agenda," he added.
Here's the link of the complete interview:
http://finance.yahoo.com/video/buffett-mary-barra-gm-131600525.html
General Motors is trading at 8.22 times FY2015 EPS. The company has an attractive dividend yield of 3.20%. Out of 19 analysts covering the company 11 are positive and have buy recommendations, six have hold ratings and two have sell ratings.
