WASHINGTON - U.S. taxpayers are about $10 billion in the red on their General Motors Co. investment after Wednesday's initial public offering. Whether the Treasury can ultimately break even will depend on how GM shares perform over the next few years, reported The Wall Street Journal.

The Treasury Department agreed Wednesday to sell 358.5 million of its common shares in GM at $33 a share, senior Obama administration officials said.

That sale raised $11.8 billion for U.S. taxpayers. It also valued the Treasury's entire 61 percent stake in GM - including the shares it sold - at about $30 billion.

The Treasury paid about $40 billion for the 912 million common shares it held at the start of the day Wednesday. To get that all back at once, the Treasury would have had to sell all its shares at about $43.85 in the IPO.

After the IPO, the Treasury Department retains about a 37 percent stake in GM. The remaining 554 million common shares the government owns have an indicated value of about $18.3 billion at Wednesday's IPO price.

The Treasury can't sell any additional shares for the next six months under the terms of the IPO.

To recover its full investment in GM, the government's remaining stake would need to reach a value of about $28.2 billion, or nearly $51 a share, on average. The Treasury is expected to sell off its remaining shares over time based on market prices.

The U.S. poured a total of $49.5 billion into GM last year to usher the Detroit auto maker through bankruptcy reorganization. The government has since recouped about $9.5 billion of that money as GM repaid loans, made interest payments and repurchased preferred stock from Treasury.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday said General Motors's initial public offering marks a "major milestone" not just for the company but for the entire American auto industry.

Mr. Obama has touted the administration's investment in GM, saying it saved hundreds of jobs at a time when the economy was on the brink of collapse. "Supporting the American auto industry required tough decisions and shared sacrifices," Mr. Obama said in a statement. He added, "But it helped save jobs, rescue an industry at the heart of America's manufacturing sector, and make it more competitive for the future."

Senior Obama administration officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named, said the administration's decision to sell at a price below break-even reflected an urgency to get the U.S. government out of the auto business. The extraordinary government intervention at GM has been politically problematic for the administration, and GM officials have expressed concern that the government ties have hurt sales.

Treasury officials said they are aiming to recover as much money as possible with future sales of GM shares.

"We believe that proper balance was found" in finding a share price that returned taxpayer money while quickly exiting GM, said one administration official. "We view this as an important major milestone in our long-announced objective to exit this investment as soon as practicable."