The US Government today said it will sell its remaining stock in auto maker General Motors in the next 12-15 months.

General Motors will buy back 200 million shares at a price of $27.50 per share, the Treasury Department said in a statement. The Treasury Department currently holds 500.1 million shares of General Motors common stock.

This transaction is expected to close by the end of the year.

The Treasury intends to sell another 300.1 million shares through various means in an orderly fashion within the next 12-15 months, subject to market conditions, the statement said.

It intends to begin its disposition of those 300.1 million common shares as soon as January 2013 pursuant to a pre-arranged written trading plan.

In 2008 and 2009, the Treasury invested a total of $49.5 billion to help stabilise and restructure GM — as part of a broader rescue of the American automotive industry during a severe economic crisis.

Earlier this week, the Treasury announced that it expected to make significant additional progress winding down the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) in 2013.

Under TARP, the US government made equity investment of about $418 billion in troubled companies to strengthen their financial condition in 2008.

Overall, to date, through repayments and other income, the Treasury has recovered more than 90 per cent ($381 billion) of the $418 billion in funds disbursed for TARP.

Last week, Treasury sold its final shares of AIG common stock.

“The auto industry rescue helped save more than a million jobs during a severe economic crisis, but TARP was always meant to be a temporary, emergency programme. The government should not be in the business of owning stakes in private companies for an indefinite period of time,” Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, Timothy G Massad said.

“Moving to exit our investment in GM within the next 12 to 15 months is consistent with our dual goals of winding down TARP as soon as practicable and protecting taxpayer interests,” he said.

Including GM’s purchase of common stock from Treasury announced today, the Treasury has recovered more than $28.7 billion of its investment in GM to date through repayments, sales of stock, dividends, interest, and other income.

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