GM buys back stake in Shanghai venture with SAIC

General Motors Co (GM) paid $119 million in September to buy back a 1 percent stake in its joint venture with its top Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp, which it had given up ahead of its 2009 bankruptcy, GM disclosed in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The deal pushed GM's ownership in Shanghai GM back to 50 percent. However, SAIC retains a 51 percent share in the sales side of the business.

In the run-up to its 2009 bankruptcy filing, GM sold the 1 percent share to SAIC for $85 million.

On Thursday, GM Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann told reporters that the Detroit company had completed the repurchase of the 1 percent stake in Shanghai GM and the Chinese government approved the purchase last year.

GM and its Chinese joint ventures sold 2.8 million vehicles in China in 2012, making up about 30.5 percent of global GM sales of 9.3 million units last year.

This indicates that China continues to be the biggest market for GM for the second consecutive year, trade news portal bitauto.com reported Saturday.

After the share buyback, the number of directors appointed by GM on the board of their joint venture Shanghai GM will increase to six from five, and those appointed by SAIC will remain at six, the website reported.

GM and SAIC have co-built three production bases in Shanghai, Yantai and Shenyang since 1997, and altogether these production bases contain four whole-vehicle manufacturing facilities and two powertrain plants, it said.