The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday that it will take in $312.21 million from the sale of two groups of warrants in Citigroup Inc .

The warrants to buy Citi shares, obtained when the government bailed out the bank during the financial crisis, were auctioned on Tuesday and both groups of warrants sold above the minimum bid price.

Treasury said 255.03 million A warrants to buy common stock in Citi were priced at $1.01 each versus a minimum bid price of 60 cents, while 210.08 million B warrants went at 26 cents each against a minimum bid of 15 cents.

Citigroup stock closed on Tuesday at $4.82 a share.

Closings on the warrant offerings are expected to occur on or about January 31. The warrants carry strike prices ranging from $10.61 a share to $17.85 and the new owners will have until between October 28, 2018 and January 15, 2019 to exercise them.

That means buyers can make a potential profit if Citigroup stock reaches those prices or higher before the expiry date for the warrants occurs.

Treasury pumped a total of $45 billion into Citigroup under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) during the financial crisis.

It said it has now recovered all of that plus about $12.3 billion in profits from dividends, interest and gains on the sale of Citigroup common stock, warrants and other securities.

Treasury sold the last of its Citigroup common stock in December. It obtained the warrants as part of the bailout of the bank.

Treasury's remaining interest in Citigroup consists of Trust Preferred Securities worth $800 million that are held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The FDIC is required to turn those securities over to Treasury unless it incurs any losses on Citigroup debt that had been guaranteed by the FDIC.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville, Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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