DETROIT (AP) ― Chrysler Group is reluctantly preparing for an initial public offering of some of its shares.

The automaker is proceeding with the IPO after it failed to reach an agreement on the value of the stock with the retiree trust that owns it.

Chrysler shares haven’t been publicly traded since 1998, when the company merged with Daimler AG. The Auburn Hills, Michigan-based automaker is now majority owned by Italian automaker Fiat SpA. 
The shares that would be sold are owned by a United Auto Workers-run trust that pays the health care costs for around 130,000 blue-collar Chrysler retirees. The trust owns a 41.5 percent stake in Chrysler. It will get all of the proceeds from the IPO if it goes forward.

Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of both Fiat and Chrysler, has made it clear that he wants to buy up the UAW’s share and combine Fiat and Chrysler. But the two sides have been unable to agree on a price. The trust has set the value of the stake at $4.27 billion, while Fiat says it’s worth $1.75 billion.

At the trust’s request, Chrysler filed the IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday. But Chrysler emphasized that the shares may never be publicly sold. The two sides could still reach an agreement on the price of the shares without an IPO.

“There can be no assurance that any such offering will be made or as to the timing of any offering that is made,” the company said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press.

Richard Hilgert, a Morningstar analyst who watches Fiat and Chrysler, said it’s unlikely that the IPO will ever take place because it’s not in the best interest of either the trust or Fiat.

“This is just the negotiating dance that they have to go through to come to an agreement,” he said.