Fannie Mae (FNMA)

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As TARP era winds down, U.S.’s financial-crisis bailout scorecard nears completion
Published: Dec 20, 2014 12:56 p.m. EST Bloomberg
The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008 was one of the most jarring financial-crisis-era events.
By Ryan Tracy & Julie Steinberg & Telis Demos
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government closed a chapter in financial-crisis history Friday when it sold its remaining shares of Ally Financial Inc. ALLY, +2.24% and shuttered its auto-bailout program, ending the last major pieces of a $426 billion rescue package that saved a swath of U.S. companies but never won public support.

The Treasury Department says 2008’s Troubled Asset Relief Program has returned $441.7 billion on the $426.4 billion invested.



The Treasury Department said the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program has netted a small profit, returning $441.7 billion on the $426.4 billion invested in firms including Citigroup Inc. C, -0.17% Bank of America BAC, +0.51% General Motors GM, +3.34% Chrysler and American International Group AIG, +1.40%

That profit, unexpected at the time of the bailout’s inception, has been nonetheless overshadowed by criticism that the rescue program put Wall Street’s interests ahead of Main Street’s, a view that prompted Congress to outlaw future taxpayer bailouts as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. About 35 smaller banks remain in the program, down from about 700 financial firms at the height of the program. Critics have also pointed to the possible costs of having such a large amount of government funds tied up for so long and to the risks assumed by the government with its bailouts.

While the U.S. is largely exiting from its ownership of TARP companies, it still controls mortgage giants Fannie Mae FNMA, -2.80% and Freddie Mac FMCC, -1.77% . Those firms, which were rescued by the Treasury Department before Congress created TARP, have returned to profitability, but lawmakers and the White House have yet to agree on what role the companies should continue to play and how to unwind the government’s control.

An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-tarp-era-winds-down-uss-crisis-era-bailout-scorecard-nears-completion-2014-12-20