The government says it will sell warrants it holds Thursday in Waterbury’s Webster Financial Corp. in its latest move to recoup costs from the $700 billion financial bailout program, The Associated Press reports.
The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the auction of 3.28 million warrants have a minimum bid price set at $5.50 per warrant. Purchases of the warrants give the buyer the right to buy Webster Financial stock at $18.28 per share.
Webster received $400 million from the federal government in November 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. It completed repayment of that money in December 2010.
Stock in the company closed at $20.86 in trading Tuesday. Over the past year the price has ranged from a low of $15.55 to a high of $23.73.
The sale of the warrants will sever the last link Webster has to the government bailout program. That will remove restrictions on executive compensation and dividends.
The government announced last week its intention to sell its stakes in Webster and Georgia’s SunTrust Banks.
Of the $700 billion Congress authorized for the bailout program, the government ended up distributing about $411 billion.
