The US Treasury sold another $877 million worth of GM stock in the month of July. This keeps the government on track with its pledge from last December to sell all of its shares in the company within the next 12-15 months.
The total dollar amount of the shares sold in July was revealed in the US Treasury’s monthly report to Congress. It’s been nearly five years since they first bailed GM out of bankruptcy back in December of 2008 as part of the Automotive Industry Financing Program that earned GM the nickname Government Motors.
Both the US and Canadian governments ended up helping finance General Motors to bring it out of bankruptcy. Canada is also slowly divesting itself of shares of General Motors. The Canadian government currently holds 140 million shares in the company or about a 10% stake.
During the month of July, General Motors stock sold at anywhere from $34 to $37 per share. If you crunch the numbers that means the US government sold somewhere around 24 to 26 million shares of the stock. Neither the government nor GM has confirmed the exact number as yet.
At the time that the Treasury announced its plans to divest itself of GM stock back in December, General Motors bought back 200 million shares. This was followed by the Treasury’s sale of 58 million shares for a net of $2 billion in April.
Next was the sale of additional 30 million shares in June for $1.03 billion. The June sale was part of a public offering of the stock as General Motors returned to the S&P 500 index.
Despite those huge net proceed numbers in the billions, the US Government is still far from making a profit or just breaking even on General Motors. The original loan was for $51 billion. Combining loan repayments, stock sales and dividends, the amount recovered as of July 31st is just $35 billion.
Nicole Wakelin fell in love with cars as a teenager when she got to go for a ride in a Ferrari. It was red and it was fast and that was all that mattered. Game over. She considers things a bit more carefully now, but still has a weakness for fast, beautiful cars. Nicole also writes for NerdApproved and GeekMom.
