Bank of America warrants sale raises $1.54 billion

The Treasury Department has received a record $1.54 billion from the sale of warrants it received from Bank of America as part of the support it provided during the financial crisis. The Treasury said Thursday it sold 272.17 million warrants in an auction held because Bank of America and the government could not agree upon an acceptable price. Warrants are financial instruments that allow the holder to buy stock in the future at a fixed price. The $1.54 billion total is the largest amount raised from a single institution from the sale of warrants as part of the government's $700 billion financial rescue effort. The amount raised in the Bank of America auction exceeds the $936.1 million raised from a December auction of JPMorgan Chase & Co. warrants and the $1.1 billion raised from the sale of Goldman Sachs warrants.