Quote:
During the height of the financial crisis in October and November of 2008, Citigroup got more than $45 billion in federal aid in exchange for preferred shares. The government later restructured that package. Officials converted $20 billion into a loan, and the remaining $25 billion was converted in September into common stock at the price of $3.25 a share.
Citigroup was the only bank that gave common shares to the government, because the firm was in worse shape than its rivals and couldn't promise to repay its aid entirely in cash.
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no other bank bail out followed this plan and the only reason this bank was covered was because it was a crapshoot that they would survive.
it luckly panned out but it just as easily could have resulted in this bank going belly up and the government lossing it 45 billion
8 billion on a 45 billion bet is not as great a return as you think it is.
And it amazing how democrats are going to point to this as proof that the bail out work, especially when you consider that in every other case the government lost money because they covered the carrying cost of the loans and basically only got their money back.