10 Huge Bailouts From the Financial Meltdown

The Huffington Post has reported that it has been a little over a year since Congress and former President BushPresident Bush gave the Treasury Department the authority to distribute hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to failing banks, auto manufacturers, and AIG.

The Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailouts, in the amounts of $50.7 billion and $44.9 billion, respectively, aren’t included in this list for the reason that their funding was authorized in earlier legislation passed in July of 2008.

So far, the Treasury has given money to over 700 companies, but a handful of firms received TARP money in notably massive amounts. It’s time to take a look back at how much these companies received, what has been repaid, and what is still outstanding.

Morgan Stanley received a capital injection of $10 billion in October of 2008, and was one of several banks that repaid its TARP loans in full on June 9, 2009.

Goldman Sachs received its $10 billion boost from TARP in October of 2008 and, along with JPMorgan and others, repaid the money, as well as interest, in June of 2009.

The $69.8 billion AIG received from the Treasury Department -- more than any other institution -- was just a piece of the larger $134 billion bailout the insurer snagged from the federal government. So far, none of the principal has been returned.

GM received its initial TARP funds in December of 2008. When the carmaker filed for bankruptcy protection in June of 2009, the Treasury Department traded $30 billion more for an approximately 61% stake in the company. In total, the government provided GM with over $50 billion, and $360 million of the principal amount has been repaid.

Citigroup hauled in a total of $50 billion in bailout money, and the Treasury, together with the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, guaranteed a portion of the bank’s losses on $301 billion in assets. So far, none of the principal amount has been repaid.

Bank of America received its first TARP funds, along with several other banks, in 2008. But in early 2009, as the bank dealt with the losses it underwent as a result of buying Merrill Lynch, the Treasury Department stepped in with extra funds. The financial giant proclaimed on Friday that it would return $713 billion in TARP dividends to the U.S. government. So far this year the bank has returned $2.54 billion in dividends.

In October of 2008, the Treasury Department committed $25 billion to Wells Fargo. So far, none of the principal amount has been returned.

JPMorgan Chase received $25 billion in bailout funds at the same time as seven other large banks in October of 2008. The bank fully returned its loan in June of 2009, along with nearly $800 million in interest.

After Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 in April of 2008, the Treasury increased its commitment to the carmaker by $8 billion, bringing its total TARP funding to $12.8 billion. The carmaker has repaid $280 million of the principal amount to the government.

Of the $12.5 billion GMAC received from TARP, none of the principal amount has been returned.