Which then means the Bank did receive some assistance from the gov back then. Any idea of the amount and how much of it was repaid by the bank? If the principle has been paid back in full then the preferred stock might be materialized when the recipient is indeed making some profit. FN is under CH11 and provided the bank has repaid its loan in full then the claim of more cheese on top might not be strongly defensible in courts. However UST does carry tones of political power over the smaller banks and does exercise them arbitrarily time to time as Fred also suggested.