BUSINESS BRIEF

U.S. Treasury lowers 
stake in GM to 7.3%

9/19/2013

DETROIT — The U.S. Treasury Department has reduced its stake in General Motors Co. to 7.3 percent as part of a program to sell all its shares as soon as this year.

The Treasury’s stake is down from 32 percent in December, when the government announced it was selling $5.5 billion of its stock back to GM and planning to sell the rest on the market within 15 months. The government said it had recovered $35.4 billion of $51 billion invested in GM. With the remaining stake worth about $3.8 billion, the United States probably would lose $11.8 billion.

The United States held a majority of GM’s stock when the Detroit automaker emerged from a government-backed bankruptcy in 2009.