BB&T, Chase and others repay TARP - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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billion to the U.S. Treasury to buy back the preferredc shares it sold to the federal government last fall as part of the Troubles AssetRelief Program, or TARP. BB&T was amongt a group of ten large banks that receivexd permission to exit that program earlier this That part of TARP was designed to injectr capital into healthy banks around the country as othefr sources of money dried up in thecredit BB&T paid a total of $92.7 million in dividenfd payments to the federal governmeny for the use of the funding.
CEO Kelly King said the investmenftin BB&T worked out well for the “Our strong capital position allowede us to pay back TARP in a very shortr amount of time,” King said. “But what’s important today is that we’ve repaid the government, and now we have a singulaf focus on the businese of serving our The Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T really didn’t want to join the federal program in the first place, chairmah and former CEO John Allisonj said in a speech to the Competitive Enterprise Institute last week.
Allison described TARP and the pressures banks were under to take partas “a huge rip-ofdf for us,” according to repor t in the Wall Street Journal. and also repaid TARP fundsw on Wednesday. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank (NYSE: USB) was returninyg $6.6 billion and New York-based JPMorgan Chase JPM) was giving back $10 billion. U.S. Bank had previouslg announced its plans to redeem the preferredx stock issued tothe Treasury, and last week it received approvalp from the government to do so. U.S. Bank also told the Treasuru it intends to repurchasethe 10-year warrant it had issues along with the preferred stock.
“The redemption allowws our company to return to operating from a position of both independent strength and strategic flexibility,” said Richard Davis, U.S. Bank president, CEO and chairman, in a The Treasury in May announced U.S. Bank passedf its stress test, which showed it wouldx be able to ride out the economi c downturn without having to raise more Davis has been an outspoken critic ofthe government’s capital purchase program. In February he calledr the program “lousy” and said the bankinh industry was pressuredto participate. Other banks expected to refuncd TARP money Wednesdayinclude , and .