The Department of the Treasury announced that Wilmington Trust owner M&T Bank Corporation has now repaid more than $700 million in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.
The program provided liquidity for banks during the financial crisis that began in 2008.
M&T Bank, based in Buffalo, N.Y., repurchased TARP Capital Purchase Program (CPP) preferred shares from Treasury totaling $370 million. Last week, in connection with its acquisition of Wilmington Trust Corporation, M&T Bank purchased CPP preferred shares totaling $330 million that had been issued to Treasury by Wilmington Trust.
Wilmington Trust was purchased by M&T after problems involving real estate loans in Delaware battered its balance sheet.
In March, Treasury announced TARP investments in banks turned a profit. Since that time, all further repayments and income through TARP’s bank programs, provide additional positive returns for taxpayers, according to a treasury release.
Taxpayers have now recovered more than $252 billion from TARP’s bank programs through repayments, dividends, interest, and other income. That exceeds the original investment Treasury made through those programs ($245 billion) by approximately $7 billion. Treasury currently estimates that bank programs within TARP will ultimately provide a lifetime positive return of approximately $20 billion to taxpayers.
Treasury currently expects that TARP investment programs taken as a whole – including financial support for banks, other financial institutions, and the domestic auto industry; as well as targeted initiatives to restart the credit markets – will result in relatively little cost to taxpayers. No dollar estimate was released.
