U.S. Treasury Plans Public Auction of The Hartford Stock from TARP

September 21, 2010

The U.S. Department of the Treasury plans a secondary public offering of 52 million warrants to purchase the common stock of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. at a minimum bid of $10.50 per warrant.

The Treasury said that proceeds of this sale will provide an additional return to taxpayers from Treasury’s investment in the insurer beyond the dividend payments it received on the related preferred stock.

The government obtained the warrants in June, 2009, when Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. accepted $3.4 billion of federal bailout money, the maximum it was authorized to accept, to bolster capital in the wake of large investment losses.

In April of this year, The Hartford repaid the government for its bailout by repurchasing all of The Hartford’s preferred shares issued to the U.S. Department of Treasury under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), also known as the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The Treasury offering will end The Hartford’s connection to TARP.

The offering expected to price through a modified Dutch auction. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. is the sole book-running manager and Aladdin Capital LLC, Cabrera Capital Markets, LLC, Lebenthal & Co., LLC, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC and SL Hare Capital, Inc. are the co-managers for this offering.

Topics USA

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