(Bloomberg News) The U.S. Treasury Department plans to sell $2.2 billion of Citigroup Inc. securities, under a plan to lock in profits from the bank's 2008 bailout.
The Treasury will sell the trust preferred securities, or Trups, through a public offering managed by Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, UBS AG and Wells Fargo & Co., the government said today in a statement. Citigroup will "act as global coordinator but not as an underwriter or a sales agent," the Treasury said.
The government got the securities from Citigroup as payment for $301 billion of asset guarantees provided to help shore up investor confidence in the bank as its share price plunged in November 2008. Citigroup agreed to terminate the guarantees in December 2009. The Treasury kept $2.2 billion of the securities as compensation for the risk it took while the guarantees were in place.
"Because Treasury was never required to make any payment under the arrangement and has no further obligation to do so, all proceeds from the sale will constitute a net gain to the taxpayer under the program," the department said.
Citigroup also received $45 billion of funds from Treasury as part of the 2008 bailout. The Treasury converted $25 billion of the funds into common stock last year, and the bank repaid the remaining $20 billion. As of July 1, the Treasury still held 5.1 billion of the bank's shares, or 18 percent.
Not included in the offering are $800 million of Trups held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that the Treasury is scheduled to receive once Citigroup repays government-guaranteed bonds sold under an FDIC emergency funding program, the Treasury said.