Three More Firms Get OK for PPIP Program

WASHINGTON (TheStreet) -- Alliance Bernstein(AB Quote), BlackRock(BLK Quote) and Wellington Management all have raised the minimum $500 million to take part in the Treasury Department's program to purchase toxic assets from banks.

These investment firms join Invesco(IVZ Quote) and TCW Group, which were given the OK last week to participate in the Public-Private Investment Program, or PPIP, the Associated Press reports.

The three new firms increase the total purchasing power to obtain banks' soured assets to $12.27 billion, Treasury said, according to the AP.

Four additional firms are seeking to participate and Treasury officials predict they will qualify by the end of October. Previous reports said those four firms are Marathon Asset Management, Oaktree Capital Management, RLJ Western Asset Management, and a partnership between Angelo, Gordon & Co., and General Electric's (GE Quote) GE Capital Real Estate arm.

"The PPIP continues to grow," Treasury Assistant Secretary Herb Allison said in a statement Sunday, the AP reports. "Private capital is being drawn into the market for legacy securities and taxpayers are being given a chance to share in the profits."

Treasury said that so far private investors in the five firms approved for the program have come up with $3.07 billion, which it has matched. These firms will be able to borrow an additional $6.13 billion from Treasury to bring the total amount available to purchase toxic assets to $12.27 billion.

Federal banking regulators in July unveiled a much smaller version of the original plan to kick start the market for banks' bad loans. The PPIP is offering up to $30 billion in leverage to facilitate private-sector purchases of banks' legacy loan securities; the original scope of the program was $1 trillion.