US Treasury is closer to selling its stake in GM
THE US Treasury has sold another block of shares in General Motors, reducing its stake to 7.3 per cent as it moves toward exiting its holdings in the carmaker by the end of March.
The Treasury sold more than 110m shares between 6 May and 13 September, raising more than $3.82bn (£2.4bn), according to documents posted online. The Treasury confirmed its stake in America’s biggest car company now stands at 101m shares.
The Treasury’s remaining stake is worth about $3.7bn. At the current share price, the Treasury would end up losing about $10bn on the bailout of GM.
The US government, which originally took a 60.8 per cent stake in GM as part of its $49.5bn bailout of the company in 2009, said it had recovered about $35.4bn of its investment.
When it outlined its exit plan in December 2012, Treasury said it would sell all its GM shares in 12 to 15 months.
“We remain on track to complete our exit from GM by early next year at a cost far less than originally projected,” Treasury Assistant Secretary Timothy Massad said in a statement.
The US sold the last of its bailout-related stake in Chrysler to Fiat in 2011, and disposed of its final tranche of shares in AIG last December.