Reuters: The Treasury Department converted $5.5 billion of its preferred shares in Ally Financial, the lender once known as GMAC, into common stock, laying the groundwork for exiting the investment.Ally, which hopes to go public next year and has been working to clean up its balance sheet, was buffeted by losses on mortgages and other loans amid the financial crisis and received more than $17 billion in several rounds of government cash injections.
The move to convert almost half of the Treasury’s preferred stock, a year after Ally received its last government cash injection, is “designed to accelerate Treasury’s ability to exit its investment in the company,” the department said in a statement on Thursday.
It will take the government’s common stock ownership of the firm to 74 percent, up from 56 percent. Read more at Reuters…..
