General Motors plans to sell the last of its holdings in Ally Financial, its onetime financing arm, through a private placement of shares, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.
The move would allow G.M. to avoid a lockup of its shares if Ally were to move forward with a long-awaited initial public offering. Such sales usually require existing stockholders to hold on to their shares for several months.
An I.P.O. would let Ally’s majority shareholder, the federal government, sell some of its 64 percent stake. The Treasury Department obtained those holdings as part of a series of bailouts, which Ally has been steadily repaying.
The timing of an I.P.O. isn’t clear, though Ally and G.M. are counting on rising investor interest in the company.
In a regulatory filing this year, Ally reported G.M.’s stake at 132,000 shares. That represents about 8.5 percent of its outstanding stock after a share sale earlier this year.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, the private placement would be valued at about $900 million.
Representatives for G.M. and Ally declined to comment.
