General Motors announced Wednesday that it will spend $3.9 billion to reclaim 156.1 million outstanding preferred shares, taking a charge of around $800 million.
The Series A shares that will be redeemed are held by the United Auto Workers Retiree Medical Benefits Trust and Canada General Investment Corp, Bloomberg reported.
Last year, GM saw its strongest sales in the United States since 2007, but it was beleaguered by recalls for around 27 million vehicles, almost half of the total for cars and trucks recalled in the country in 2014.
Redeeming the outstanding Series A shares is a move that will streamline the automaker's financial report for the fourth quarter of 2014. It will also tie loose ends left from GM's 2009 bankruptcy and consequent restructuring.
A final accounting report from the bailout that saved GM revealed that the rescue cost the federal government $9.26 billion. According to the U.S. Treasury, $70.43 billion of the $79.69 billion loaned to help the automaker has been recovered through stock sales, partial loan repayments, dividends and interest payments, the Detroit News reported.
"We've now repaid taxpayers every dime and more of what my administration committed, and the American auto industry is on track for its strongest year since 2005," President Obama said at a press conference on Monday.
The Treasury sold its final shares in "government motors" in December 2013, while its ownership stake in Chrysler was closed in July 2011 and resulted in a $1.3 billion loss. While the bailout remains controversial, supporters say that the losses sustained by the government are small in comparison with the potential reverberation throughout the U.S. auto industry following GM and Chrysler's collapse.
"A December 2013 study said failure of GM could have sacrificed 1.2 million U.S. jobs, cut personal income by $79.5 billion and eliminated $17 billion in income taxes and Social Security taxes in 2009," the Detroit News reported. "It could have also boosted government spending by $6.5 billion."
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