The Treasury continues to gain from the sale of preferred bank stock – all of which is leftover from the department’s bailout of U.S. banks during the financial crisis.
The Treasury expects to pull in $66.1 million in proceeds from a recently priced auction of stock tied to seven banks that received Treasury assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
The auctions allow the Treasury to continue its wind down of TARP bank programs, launched back in 2008 to keep the nation’s banks and financial system liquid during the economic crisis.
This week, the shares of seven banks were priced for auction by the Treasury – the Bank of George out of Las Vegas; Blue Valley Ban Corp. out of Overland Park, Kan.; Centrue Financial Corp. out of Ottawa, Ill.; Eastern Virginia Bankshares out of Tappanhannock, Va.; Oregon Bancorp out of Salem, Ore.; Spirit BankCorp out of Bristow, Okla.; and Valley Community Bank in Pleasanton, Calif.
"During the financial crisis, TARP played a critical role in stabilizing the economy," said Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Timothy Massad. "Today’s auctions are part of our ongoing efforts to wind down the bank programs, which have already earned a significant gain for American taxpayers."
So far, the Treasury has recovered more than $273 billion from the TARP bank programs through a variety of repayments, dividends, interest and other income, the department said. Considering $245 billion was the initial investment, the programs are considered profitable from the Treasury's standpoint.
Most of the payments — $273 billion to be exact — are from repayments tied to dividends, interest and the sale of warrants.
The sale of fixed-rate cumulative preferred stock from Blue Valley Ban Corp. is expected to bring in $21.2 million alone, while the Eastern Virginia Bankshares sale of series-A fixed-rate cumulative preferred stock is estimated to raise as much as $26.4 million in aggregate gross proceeds.
Eastern Virginia Bancshares stock is priced at $1,104.11 per share, with 24,000 shares assigned to the auction.
