DETROIT – General Motors is raising its quarterly dividend and initiating a new $6 billion share repurchase program as the company attempts to reward investors amid slowing industry sales and profits.
GM announced Wednesday it is increasing its quarterly dividend by 25% to 15 cents per share — matching that of crosstown rival Ford Motor. The higher dividend is expected to take effect with the company’s next planned payout, scheduled to be announced in April.
Under the $6 billion repurchase plan, $2 billion in buybacks are expected to be completed during the second quarter.
“The GM team’s execution continues to be strong across all three pillars of our capital allocation strategy, which are to reinvest in the business for profitable growth, maintain a strong investment grade balance sheet, and return capital to our shareholders,” said GM CEO Mary Barra in a news release.
Barra last month suggested the company would continue to return capital to shareholders this year, pending board approval. Since 2023, the automaker has announced $16 billion in stock buyback programs, resulting in the retiring of more than 1 billion outstanding shares.
Despite such actions and reporting strong quarterly results, including regularly outperforming Wall Street’s expectations, shares of GM are down more than 12% this year.
GM, Ford and Stellantis stocks in 2025.
Wall Street analysts have cited plateauing industry sales, regulatory uncertainty around tariffs and a lack of potential growth opportunities as all weighing on the stock.
GM said the total number of shares ultimately bought back the $2 billion accelerated share repurchase will be based on the average of the daily volume-weighted price of GM’s common stock during the term of the program. The program is be executed by JPMorgan and Barclays.
Outside of the accelerated program, GM will have another $4.3 billion of capacity remaining under its share repurchase authorizations “for additional, opportunistic share repurchases,” the company said. That includes $300 million from its last $6 billion stock buyback program from June.
As of the end of last year, GM had fewer than 1 billion shares outstanding – achieving a target announced earlier in the year by GM CFO Paul Jacobson.
“We feel confident in our business plan, our balance sheet remains strong, and we will be agile if we need to respond to changes in public policy,” Jacobson said in a statement. “The repurchase authorization our board approved continues a commitment to our capital allocation policy.”
GM’s 2025 guidance includes net income attributable to stockholders in a range of $11.2 billion to $12.5 billion, or $11 to $12 per share; adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of $13.7 billion to $15.7 billion, or $11 to $12 adjusted EPS; and adjusted automotive free cash flow of between $11 billion and $13 billion.
