U.S. take if it sells its Citi stake to settle cost of bailout: $8 billion

(1) Bailout
(2) Devalue
(3) Raise the Stock Price
(4) Dilute and Profit

Problem solved? Hardly.

The buyers of the issue, not Citi, are the ones paying to the king, a ransom.

On paper, the government's 27 percent stake has grown in value to $33 billion. The size of the deal in the works has Wall Street buzzing. Only the stock offering by Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, which raised $36.8 billion in 1987, was larger, according to Thomson Reuters.

Source: washingtonpost.com