WASHINGTON – Wednesday, as part of its continuing efforts to wind down its investments in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced its intent to fully exit its investment in General Motors (GM) within the next 12-15 months, subject to market conditions.
Treasury currently holds 500.1 million shares of GM common stock. Treasury intends to exit that investment through the following means:
GM will purchase 200 million shares of GM common stock from Treasury at $27.50 per share. This transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.
Treasury intends to sell its other remaining 300.1 million shares through various means in an orderly fashion within the next 12-15 months, subject to market conditions. Treasury intends to begin its disposition of those 300.1 million common shares as soon as January 2013 pursuant to a pre-arranged written trading plan. The manner, amount, and timing of the sales under the plan are dependent upon a number of factors.
Earlier this week, Treasury announced that it expected to make significant additional progress winding down TARP’s bank programs in 2013. Last week, Treasury sold its final shares of AIG common stock. Overall, to date, through repayments and other income, Treasury has recovered more than 90 percent ($381 billion) of the $418 billion in funds disbursed for TARP.
“The auto industry rescue helped save more than a million jobs during a severe economic crisis, but TARP was always meant to be a temporary, emergency program. The government should not be in the business of owning stakes in private companies for an indefinite period of time,” said Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Timothy G. Massad. “Moving to exit our investment in GM within the next 12 to 15 months is consistent with our dual goals of winding down TARP as soon as practicable and protecting taxpayer interests.”
In 2008 and 2009, Treasury invested a total of $49.5 billion to help stabilize and restructure GM – as part of a broader rescue of the American automotive industry during a severe economic crisis. Including GM’s purchase of common stock from Treasury announced today, Treasury has recovered more than $28.7 billion of its investment in GM to date through repayments, sales of stock, dividends, interest, and other income.
According to independent estimates, the rescue of the American auto industry helped save more than 1 million jobs. Moreover, since June 2009, the auto industry has added a quarter of a million new jobs. For details on Treasury’s lifetime cost estimates for TARP programs, please visit Treasury’s Monthly 105(a) Report to Congress on TARP at this link.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any shares of GM common stock, nor shall there be any offer, solicitation or sale of shares of GM common stock in the United States, any state thereof or any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful absent registration or qualification under applicable securities laws or an applicable exemption from such registration or qualification requirements.
