The US government on Thursday said it had completed the sale of more than four billion dollars' worth of shares in Citigroup, and would continue to sell its remaining stake. The Treasury Department said it had sold a second block of shares worth 4.3 billion dollars, netting around 3.90 dollars a share.
The move is part of Washington's efforts to recoup taxpayer dollars by winding up investments that were designed to prop up teetering financial firms during the depths of the financial crisis.
In May the government sold about 1.5 billion Citi shares for a gain of around 6.3 billion dollars, or around 4.13 dollars a share.
The Treasury still owns more than five billion shares in Citigroup.
At the depths of the crisis the government injected 45 billion dollars into the firm, once the world's biggest banking group.
The New York-based company faced massive losses in the wake of the mortgage crisis and came perilously close to seeing a run on its deposits as confidence in the system collapsed.
Despite repaying some 20 billion dollars to the authorities in December, Citi is still one of the last of the major banks operating in the shadow of a US government bailout.
