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 DETROIT — Chrysler filed for a public stock offering on Monday, acting only under pressure from its second-largest shareholder, a trust set up to provide medical coverage for 115,000 retired autoworkers and their relatives. 
 
 Ordinarily, Chrysler’s plan would be cause to celebrate the automaker’s comeback from its government bailout and bankruptcy in 2009. But it is acting only after negotiations stalled between Fiat, which controls Chrysler, and the trust over the purchase of the trust’s minority stake in Chrysler. 
 
 The offering could be canceled if Fiat and the trust reach a deal. 
 
 Related Links Document: The Chrysler prospectus 
 
 The Detroit automakers have large financial responsibilities to their retirees. On Monday, General Motors said it would raise money in the bond market to buy preferred stock in the company owned by its retiree health care trust at a cost of $3.2 billion. Chrysler’s offering arises from an unusual conflict of interests, made possible by the remarkable turnaround at Chrysler since the federal government shepherded it through bankruptcy four years ago. 
 
 The United Automobile Workers health care trust has the legal right to cash in a large part of its 41.5 percent stake in Chrysler, which is a legacy of a deal brokered in 2009 by the Obama administration’s auto task force. At the time, the deal was seen as a last effort to save the faltering automaker, while preserving peace with the U.A.W. 
 
 Now, with profits flowing again and the trust in need of cash, it has formally requested that Chrysler register for a public offering covering about 16 percent of the company’s overall shares. The offering is another sign of how Chrysler — like General Motors — has recovered since the bailout. In the case of G.M., the Treasury Department is continuing to sell its ownership position, and now owns less than 8 percent of the company’s stock. 
 
 The Chrysler offering, however, is not supported by Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of Fiat and Chrysler and the architect of the American company’s revival. 
 
 Mr. Marchionne is eager to merge the companies into an international auto giant. To do so, he needs to acquire the trust’s entire 41.5 percent stake. 
 
 But the gap between what Fiat wants to pay for the shares and what the trust’s administrators say they are worth is wide. After months of unsuccessful negotiations, the trust wants to establish the shares’ value in the stock market — and reap a windfall for part of its stake. 
 
 “It’s a very, very high-stakes battle going on here,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “Both sides are being quite strategic, and we’ll see how it plays out.” 
 
 Officials for the trust, known as a Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association, have declined to comment. 
 
 Some industry analysts view the trust’s request for the stock offering as a negotiating tactic intended to force Fiat to pay a premium price for all its shares. 
 
 In a continuing court case about the valuation, Fiat has said the trust’s stake is worth about $3 billion. But the trust wants considerably more than that. “The union took a very high risk when it accepted shares in a bankrupt company four years ago to cover health care for retirees,” Mr. Shaiken said. “Now they want to share in Chrysler’s success.” 
 
 But proceeding with an initial public offering also poses potential problems for the company and the trust. Among the risks that Chrysler disclosed in its prospectus is the rupturing of its alliance with Fiat, which the American carmaker said would have “a material adverse effect on our business prospects.” 
 
 Prospective investors may also be wary of participating in a Chrysler offering because the natural buyer for the trust’s shares, Fiat, is not expected to participate. Even if a stock sale were to be completed, only part of the company’s shares would trade. 
 
 That could create sharp swings in the stock price, potentially lowering the company’s market value and affecting the worth of the trust’s remaining shares. 
 
 Chrysler, the third-biggest American carmaker after General Motors and Ford, has been surging the last two years. Its sales have increased on the strength of new products like the revamped Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicle. In the second quarter, its profits rose 16 percent, to $507 million. 
 
 Its earnings have been a bright spot for Fiat, which has struggled with weak demand for new vehicles in its core European market. 
 
 Mr. Marchionne and Fiat’s board would like to buy all of the trust’s shares and consolidate the Italian and American companies into one global automaker. 
 
 Fiat already owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler’s shares, giving it undisputed control. A limited stock offering would not change that. 
 
 But if Fiat could gain 100 percent ownership, it could tap into Chrysler’s large cash reserves, integrate the two companies’ operations and cut overall costs. 
 
 Mr. Marchionne has not closed the door on further talks between Fiat and the trust over buying its entire stake. The trust, however, is not waiting for more negotiations. By requesting the stock offering, it could shore up its finances with more than $1 billion in cash to pay for the medical costs of retirees. 
 
 The Chrysler trust was created in 2007 when the U.A.W. agreed during national contract talks to set up health care trusts for retirees at each of the Detroit auto companies. Ford has financed its trust with cash and stock, and the bulk of the G.M. trust is backed by preferred shares. 
 
 At the time, the U.A.W. made the difficult decision to take 41.5 percent of the struggling automaker to cover Chrysler’s long-term obligations to its retirees. 
 
 Steven Rattner, who led the auto task force that arranged the deal, said the union took a big risk — and now deserves to benefit from its faith that Chrysler could be revitalized. 
 
 “Chrysler equity was given to the health care trust in exchange for billions of dollars of obligations that the auto company had to the trust,” Mr. Rattner said by e-mail. “At the time taking that equity was a huge gamble for the workers, and I couldn’t be happier that it has worked out well for them.” 
 
 JPMorgan Chase is leading the underwriting for the I.P.O. 
 
 Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting from New York. 

 Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler and Fiat, is going ahead with a public offering of Chrysler stock, even though he prefers to directly buy the 41.5% of Chrysler that Fiat doesn't already own. That stake is held by a UAW retirement trust that says Fiat's price is too low. Marchionne is shown at a Chrysler plant earlier this year. (Photo: AJ Mast, AP) Story Highlights Chrysler files to sell shares to public; price not set 
 
 Would be the first time since 1998 the automaker is publicly traded 
 
 Shares will come from UAW retirement trust's 41.5% stake in Chrysler 
 
 Chrysler Group on Monday made a government filing that could lead to an initial public offering of stock. 
 
 The company said in the filing that the number of shares to be sold and a price range haven't been set. JPMorgan is listed as the lead adviser. 
 
 All the shares to be sold would come from a 41.5% stake in Chrysler held by a United Auto Workers retirement trust, the filing says. The remaining 58.5% of the company is owned by Fiat, which got control of Chrysler in the 2009 government-sponsored bankruptcy reorganization. 
 
 The trust has said it wants to cash out so it is liquid enough to pay health benefits for the about 60,000 people it covers and to diversify. 
 
 The filing says, "We do not intend to pay any dividends in the foreseeable future." 
 
 If the Securities and Exchange Commission approves the registration, which could take several months, and a sale of shares takes place — which isn't guaranteed — it would be the first time since 1998 that all three Detroit automakers are publicly traded. Chrysler was bought by Germany's Daimler-Benz in 1998, then sold to private investment group Cerberus Capital. 
 
 Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has said he wants to buy the stake that the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust got in the bankruptcy reorganization and merge the two companies into a single public company. 
 
 But the two sides haven't been able to agree on a price. It is the UAW trust that forced the issue, using a provision of the bankruptcy agreement that allows it to require registration for an IPO. 
 
 This can be seen as a negotiating tool. If Fiat wants all of Chrysler badly enough, it might boost its offer for the UAW trust's stake to avoid the sale of shares to the public, which would make it very difficult for Fiat to achieve the goal of 100% ownership of Chrysler. 
 
 Also, Chrysler would have to pay for the IPO — lawyers, advisers and others — but all the proceeds of share sales, according to the filing, would go to the UAW trust. That gives Fiat more motivation to avoid a public offering. 
 
 There also is a risk for the trust. The market, in the IPO process, might value the shares at less than the UAW trust expects. That would give Fiat a chance to renew its offer at what would seem a more favorable price for the buyer. 
 
 "The trust is looking for a windfall based on the current expected value of a publicly traded Chrysler," but that might not materialize, cautions Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and market analyst at auto researcher Kelley Blue Book. 
 
 He sees the combining of Fiat and Chrysler as a benefit to both automakers and to their current employees, while an IPO, in his view, could be a lose-lose situation for them. 
 
 While Marchionne has said he wants to merge the two companies, he has, over the months, declined to discuss some nuts-and-bolts details, such as where the merged company would have its headquarters — the U.S. or Italy? He has said, however, that the merged public company would trade in the U.S. 
 
 The companies and the trust haven't disclosed the specifics of their negotiations, although reports have put their valuations of Chrysler for purposes of setting a share price as far apart as $4 billion to $15 billion. The IPO process would allow the market to set a share price range. 
 
 As it stands, Fiat, under the bankruptcy agreement and outside of any IPO, has options to buy three more 3.3% stakes in Chrysler from the trust. When the two couldn't agree on a price for the first 3.3% portion, Fiat sued the UAW trust in Delaware Chancery Court. A judge this summer, however, declined to set a price, ruling that it should be settled in a trial. It could be 2015 before such a trial would begin — longer than Fiat's timetable for taking over all of Chrysler and longer than the trust wants to wait for cash. 
 
 In filing the documents with the SEC, Chrysler is following the path of General Motors, which conducted an IPO on Nov. 17, 2010, pricing its common shares at $33 and raising $20.1 billion. It took more than two years for shares to begin routinely trading for more than that initial price. 
 
 Before the GM IPO, taxpayers owned about 61% of GM because the U.S. Treasury took equity in exchange for money pumped into the failing car company in its bankruptcy reorganization to preserve jobs and the U.S. manufacturing base. After the government sold shares in the IPO, the taxpayers' share dropped to roughly 30%, and has been shrinking since then as the government sells portions of its holdings over time, and the Treasury said last week that its stake now is below 8%. 
 
 The two automakers' situations are different, though they arise from the same circumstance: their government-scripted Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizations in 2009. 
 
 But while in GM's case, the government took majority ownership, in Chrysler's case, it brokered a deal to put the company under the control of Fiat. The Italian automaker got a 20% stake in Chrysler and control in return for Fiat's promise to develop fuel-efficient small cars for Chrysler and to build them in the U.S., as well as to open its global distribution network to Chrysler. 
 
 Fiat was allowed to buy additional stakes as it met certain goals. When Fiat took its initial stake, the European auto market had not yet tumbled as the U.S. market had. Now, the U.S. market is strong, and Chrysler is the healthy partner. 
 
 But under the bankruptcy deal Fiat does not have access to Chrysler's cash. If Marchionne is able to merge the two automakers, money could flow freely between the two. 
 
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– The Chrysler Group has filed paperwork for an initial public offering for some of its shares—the first time the company's shares will be publicly traded since 1998, the AP reports. The move comes at the behest of a United Auto Workers retirement trust, which owns 41.5% of the company, reports USA Today. The trust provides medical coverage for 115,000 former workers and their families, reports the New York Times. Chrysler has set a maximum proposed offering price of $100 million, though that may change, the AP reports. The move is sure to annoy CEO Sergio Marchionne, who is also the CEO of Fiat, which owns the other 58.5% of the company, notes the Times. Marchionne wants to merge the two auto companies, but the trust thinks its stake is worth more than Fiat is willing to pay, and would rather let the market determine the price. "The union took a very high risk when it accepted shares in a bankrupt company four years ago to cover health care for retirees,” says a labor professor from UC Berkley. "Now they want to share in Chrysler’s success."