US Treasury to sell shares in Citigroup

The US government will sell its 27-percent stake in bailed-out financial giant Citigroup over the course of 2010, the Treasury Department announced Monday.

It marks the latest move by President Barack Obama's administration to extricate itself from a series of unprecedented market interventions taken to prevent Wall Street's collapse in 2008.

Citigroup was given $45 billion in taxpayer funds in late 2008 - $20 billion in loans and $25 billion in return for the government stake. Citigroup has already paid back the $20-billion loan.

The Treasury in a statement said it would sell the Citigroup shares in "an orderly and measured fashion" through the year, partly to maximize profits and partly to ensure markets remain stable.

Bloomberg News has estimated the market value of the government's current Citigroup stake at $31.9 billion, which would represent a profit for taxpayers of $6.9 billion.