The Treasury Department received $34.1 million for its shares of preferred stock in Fidelity Financial Corp., the holding company of Wichita's Fidelity Bank.
Treasury said it earned $248.5 million in an auction earlier this week of preferred stock and subordinated debt positions it owns in a dozen banks and thrifts -- including Fidelity -- from the Capital Purchase Program, part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Treasury didn't identify the purchasers of Fidelity's stock.
Fidelity Financial, which has $1.5 billion in assets, received a $36.3 million investment from the Treasury in December 2008. In return for the investment Fidelity gave up preferred stock in the company, which it could regain once it paid back the investment plus interest. According to the latest information from Treasury, Fidelity has made timely dividend payments totaling $6.7 million through June 2012.
Treasury is winding down the program sooner than expected. Under earlier terms with Treasury, banks receiving CPP funds had five years to repay the investment amount plus 5 percent interest. If banks took more than five years to pay it off, the interest rate moved up to 9 percent. The intent behind CPP was to help unfreeze capital and spur healthy banks to lend money during the deep recession and crisis in banking.
