GM to rejoin S&P 500 this week

After a four-year absence, General Motors is set to return to the S&P 500. GM will be added to the S&P 100 and 500 indices on Thursday.

The S&P 500 -- an index index of 500 leading companies in the U.S. economy – booted GM following its June 2009 bankruptcy, but will welcome back the Detroit automaker on Thursday. GM will replace H. J. Heinz Co, which has been acquired by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and an investment fund affiliated with 3G Capital.

“The GM team has been working very hard to earn the business of customers around the world and to win the confidence of investors, and rejoining the S&P 500 shows we’re very much on track,” GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson told The Detroit News.

GM's return to the S&P 500 could be considered overdue. The index typically waits six months to a year after a company's IPO to invite them to join, but in GM's case, the invitation arrived about two-and-a-half years after its IPO.

However, GM's government ownership could have hampered its return to the index. The federal government owned a 61 percent share of GM following its bankruptcy, but that figure has since dwindled to 16 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now the only major index that GM isn't a part of.