GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The Canadian government is selling off its remaining stake in General Motors, or about 73.4 million shares valued at $2.7 billion. Canada is selling the shares to Goldman Sachs & Co. in a transaction that is expected to be complete by April 10, Bloomberg News reports. Bloomberg notes the sale helps the Canadian government and Prime Minister Stephen Harper shore up revenues that have been hit by falling oil prices, as an election looms in October.
Canada invested in General Motors alongside the U.S. in 2009 as part of a massive bailout of the beleaguered automaker. The U.S. Treasury Department sold off the federal government’s remaining shares in GM in December 2013. Officials, including President Barack Obama, touted the $85 billion auto bailout of GM, Chrysler Group LLC and their financial arms in 2008-2009 as a success that saved millions of jobs and helped drive the U.S. economy out of the Great Recession. It cost American taxpayers about $10.5 billion, and opponents of the auto bailout have said the automakers should have gone through a traditional bankruptcy without any government intervention.