jvaugh

(Detroit -- Jerome Vaughn, WDET) General Motors is expanding the scope of its initial public offering of stock.

GM says it will offer 478 million shares of common stock in its IPO, a 31 percent increase.

The Detroit automaker says it’s making the change because of substantial demand. The company has also decided to raise the price per share to $33, up from a range of $26 to $29 per share proposed earlier this month.

Positive financial news from the company has pushed interest in the IPO even higher in recent weeks. The automaker posted a two billion dollar profit in the third quarter of this year and expects to show its first full-year profit since 2004.

General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2009, emerging just over a month later. The U-S government currently owns about 61 percent of General Motors.  Federal ownership could shrink to as low as 33 percent after the IPO.