6-GM boosts IPO pricing, offers more preferred shrs

GM IPO now to raise about $12 bln in common stock

 Selling $4 bln preferred stock, $1 bln more than planned

 IPO could give GM $63 bln market value, near break-even

*Treasury may sell more shares, though focused on price (Adds industry context, adds link to factbox on IPO terms, adds background on U.S. auto sales)

NEW YORK/DETROIT, Nov 16 (Reuters) - General Motors has increased the preferred stock on offer in its landmark IPO by a third and raised the price for common stock, bringing the U.S. government closer to break-even on its controversial bailout.

The increasing size of the IPO reflects renewed investor confidence in the world's No. 2 automaker less than a year and a half after dwindling cash and falling sales pushed it into a bankruptcy funded by the Obama administration.

Teetering on the brink of failure before the government intervention in 2009, the U.S. auto industry has come through the punishing downturn of the past two years with sharply lower costs and higher profit potential, analysts said.

"I think part of it may be the market looking at a restructured General Motors and thinking this can be a cash cow again under certain market conditions," said Brad Coulter, a director at Michigan-based advisory firm O'Keefe & Associates.

"If you get back to an even moderate market of 13, 14, 15 million units, I think the market is expecting GM -- and you are seeing it with Ford as well -- to be making a lot of money."

(source:reuters.com)