Treasury starts selling remaining General Motors stock
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department has begun selling the rest of its stake in General Motors Co. as the government tries to end its bailout of the automaker in a little more than a year.
Last month, the Treasury sold about $156.4 million worth of its stock, according to the most recent report to Congress on the $700-billion financial crisis bailout fund.
The sale is the first step toward liquidating the government’s remaining holdings in GM, which was announced in December.
Treasury officials said on Dec. 19 that that they would sell 200 million shares of common stock to GM as part of a plan to sell all the government’s holdings in 12 to 15 months.
Obama administration officials have said they don’t expect to recover all the bailout money given to GM.
GM paid $27.50 per share in that transaction, which closed on Dec. 21, about half the price the government needed to obtain on its shares to break even on the $49.5-billion bailout.
Treasury officials did not release the sales price for the January stock sale or the number of shares sold. At the start of January, the government owned 300.1 million shares.
So far, the Treasury Department has recovered $29 billion of the GM bailout money through repayments, stock sales, dividends, interest and other income.
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