GM Loses Its Ticker in Canada

Michael England, the CEO of Geo Minerals, was surprised to be offered the GM ticker symbol by Canada’s stock exchange when his company went public in 2007. Now that General Motors was relisted, it wants it back.

General Motors had used the GM ticker in Canada from 1972 until it delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2005. Now it’s offering to pay Geo Minerals to change its ticker, according to Michael England.

"They did call a few times, asking about the symbol" as recently as last month, England said in an interview Thursday as GM resumed trading following its $20 billion IPO. "We never really came to anything out of it."

GM trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the GM ticker, as it did before going through bankruptcy protection. However, in Canada it had to settle for the symbol GMM.

"We would have liked to have used that symbol, but it was already taken," said Jason Easton, a spokesman for GM Canada. "I don't think it's a problem. Our ticker symbol here is GMM, and we know our investors are informed."

It would be pretty hard to confuse the two companies, with General Motors being one of the largest manufacturers in the world. The company had $105 billion in sales last year, 209,000 employees and a market value of $51.3 billion.

On the other hand, GM of Canada, Geo Minerals is a copper miner and has a market value of $3.75 million Canadian (US $3.68 million) and paid its chief financial officer $17,500 Canadian last year.