Wells Fargo sold the US Treasury $25 billion of series D preferred stock in October 2008. Under terms of the authorization from the Treasury and banking regulators to repay the investment, Wells Fargo agreed to not only sell common stock but also to increase equity by $1.5 billion through asset sales.

The asset sales must be approved by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. To the extent those asset sales are not completed by the end of 2010, the company agreed it would raise a commensurate amount of common equity, the company said.

"TARP stabilized our country's financial system when confidence in financial markets around the world was being tested unlike any other period in our history," Wells Fargo President and CEO John Stumpf said in a prepared statement. "Its success also generated financial returns for taxpayers, including $1.4 billion in dividends paid to the U.S. Treasury by Wells Fargo."