国际英语新闻：U.S. government to fully exit from Citigroup

WASHINGTON, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government will exit fully from the banking giant Citigroup over the course of 2010, the Treasury Department announced on Monday.

The department said it intends "to fully dispose of its approximately 7.7 billion shares of Citigroup, Inc. common stock over the course of 2010 subject to market conditions." The sale would be one of the largest stock sell-offs in history.

The U.S. government owns around a third of the company. At current market value, those shares are worth around 33 billion U.S. dollars.

The U.S. Treasury received Citigroup's shares of common stock in the midst of the banking crisis. The government injected a total of 45 billion dollars in the firm, once the world's biggest banking group.

According to the Treasury Department's statement, the sell-off would be "through various means in an orderly and measured fashion."

The treasury also owns billions of dollars worth of Citi trust-preferred securities and warrants -- financial instruments allowing holders to buy stock in the future at a fixed price.