WASHINGTON — Last week, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced that it would continue to wind down its investment in Ally Financial by selling additional shares of common stock through its first pre-defined written trading plan. The Treasury currently holds 75,065,340 shares, or approximately 16% of Ally common stock.

“Treasury’s sale of additional Ally common stock is part of our continuing effort to wind down the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP),” said Chief Investment Officer Charmian Uy. “We will prudently exit the remaining Ally investment, balancing speed with maximizing returns for taxpayers.”

As part of Ally’s initial public offering in April, the Treasury sold 95,000,000 shares of Ally common stock at $25.00 per share for $2.375 billion dollars in proceeds to taxpayers. The underwriters of the IPO later exercised their option to purchase 7,245,670 additional shares at the IPO price, recovering an additional $181 million for taxpayers. Taxpayers have now recovered approximately $17.8 billion on the Ally investment, roughly $650 million more than the original $17.2 billion investment.