TARP Warrants: Let the Bidding Begin

Thursday is a nice milestone in TARP’s history: with the help of Deutsche Bank, Treasury is auctioning off the warrants it received when it invested in Capital One. The company has already paid off the preferred stock that the government purchased last fall, and will now be free from TARP oversight once the warrants are in private hands. Or, perhaps, in its own hands. Although Capital One declined to purchase the warrants from Treasury at a negotiated price (as had other firms that repaid the government’s TARP investments), it can still bid in the auction.

A few months ago, I pointed out many benefits from auctioning the warrants rather than selling them back to the companies at negotiated prices. To my mind, the biggest benefits are transparency and the fairness of market pricing. Everyone—including, at least in principle, small investors—can bid in the auction.

If you are interested, here’s the prospectus, which includes (pp. S-15 to S-16) a list of participating brokers. I don’t see my broker on the list, which is disappointing, but maybe others will be luckier.

For a nice discussion of the auction mechanism (a modified Dutch auction in which all winning bidders pay the market-clearing price, very similar to the method used to sell Treasury bonds) and some estimates of the warrant values, see this Seeking Alpha piece by Linus Wilson.

Disclosure: I have no position in Capital One and, apparently, no way to bid on the warrants. If I find a way, I might do it for fun.