General Motors Repays $2.1B From TARP Fund

The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday that General Motors (NYSE: GM) has bought back from the government all the GM preferred stock issued under the Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP), effectively paying back taxpayers $2.1 billion.

The announcement comes a month after GM raised more $20 billion in the largest initial public offering in U.S. history. Taxpayers received $13.5 billion from that deal, according to a statement released by Treasury.

In all, Treasury said GM has repaid more than $23 billion to the government since receiving a bailout in 2008 that essentially rescued the iconic car maker from likely insolvency.

“Temporary support through TARP to General Motors during the financial crisis was essential to preventing a devastating collapse of the American auto industry and saving more than 1 million American jobs,” Tim Massad, Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, said in a statement.

Treasury invested a total of $49.5 billion in GM, according to the statement. Taxpayers have now received a total of $23.1 billion in return from GM through repayments, interest, and dividends since the company emerged from bankruptcy in July 2009. Treasury’s remaining stake in GM now consists of 500,065,254 shares of common stock.