General Motors Co. on Wednesday said it's increasing its next quarterly dividend by 3 cents and announced a $6 billion share repurchase program.

The Detroit automaker's next dividend will be 15 cents per share, up from 12 cents, and is expected to be declared in April, according to an early Wednesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The share repurchase program includes a $2 billion accelerated share repurchase by the end of the first half of the year. There is no expiration on the repurchase program.

GM's stock was up 6.9% in Wednesday morning trading after closing on Tuesday at $46.71. That's up almost 18% from a year ago, driven by GM's recent share repurchase programs and low-cost structure compared to competitors like Ford Motor Co. The move signals confidence as the automaker is projecting $11.2 billion to $12.5 billion in net income in 2025 — double its 2024 results that were affected by one-time charges from restructuring in China.

It also projects $21 billion to $24 billion in automotive free cash flow and capital spending of $10 billion to $11 billion. The 2025 guidance, however, doesn't factor in potential policy changes, including 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico promised by President Donald Trump that could take effect as early as Tuesday.

“The GM team’s execution continues to be strong across all three pillars of our capital allocation strategy, which are to reinvest in the business for profitable growth, maintain a strong investment grade balance sheet, and return capital to our shareholders,” GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “We are growing our business thanks to our broad, deep, and compelling portfolio of ICE vehicles and EVs. At the same time, we are investing our capital in a disciplined and consistent way to continue generating strong margins and cash flows.”

Barra earlier this month had suggest similar shareholder return efforts would be forthcoming. Analysts suggested GM's forecast for the year creates the proper conditions for the authorizations.

"The 25% increase will result in the company paying out a dividend of about 5% of our 2025 earnings estimate," Jeff Windau, analyst at financial services firm Edward Jones, wrote in a note to investors. "We believe this is manageable given the company's expected generation of cash for the year."

Outside of the accelerated repurchase program, GM will have $4.3 billion of capacity remaining under its share repurchase authorizations for additional repurchases.

GM in November 2023 after ratifying a record agreement with the United Auto Workers announced a $10 billion accelerated share repurchase agreement while continuing to have approximately $1.4 billion in remaining capacity under a prior share repurchase authorization. It immediately acquired 215 million shares representing 68% of the allocation for a total of $1.1 billion in share repurchasing in 2023, down from $2.5 billion in 2022.

Another 4 million shares were retired in March, and GM's board of directors approved another repurchase authorization of $6 billion in June. The company acquired 25 million shares in the final three months of 2024, bringing its outstanding shares below 1 billion ahead of schedule. GM paid $7.1 billion in share repurchases in 2024.

GM reinstated a 9-cent quarterly dividend in September 2022 following a hiatus during a 2019 UAW strike and the COVID-19 pandemic. Its board increased the dividend to 12 cents per share in December 2023 starting in 2024. The company paid out $530 million for its dividend last year.

The increased dividend and share purchase authorization comes ahead of about 48,000 eligible U.S. hourly workers on Friday receiving up to a record $14,500 in profit-sharing bonuses, equal to more than two months of pay on average for UAW members and totaling $640 million. Global salaried employees also will receive "strong performance bonuses," CEO Mary Barra wrote last month in a letter to shareholders.

Ford earlier this month announced a 15-cent first-quarter regular dividend and 15-cent supplemental dividend to be paid on Monday for shareholders as of Feb. 18. It hasn't announced a recent stock repurchase program, but asserts it will pay 40-50% of its free cash flow to investors.

Stellantis NV reported Wednesday that its 2024 net profit fell sharply to $5.8 billion (5.5 billion euro), a 70% drop compared to 2023's record high. The company proposed a dividend to shareholders of 71 cents (0.68 euro) per share pending their approval. In February 2024, it launched a $3.2 billion (3 billion euro) share repurchase program, with up to $530 million (500 million euro) used for an employee stock purchase plan.

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