On Thursday the Treasury Department will auction its warrants for common stock in Lincoln National Corp., the insurer that became a bank holding company in order to take advantage of TARP, the agency announced today.

The warrants will have a minimum bid of $13.50 apiece.

Treasury's 13,049,451 Lincoln National warrants have an exercise price of $10.92. The company's shares closed Tuesday at $25.36.

Two insurers - Lincoln and The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. - became eligible for taxpayer aid through the Troubled Asset Relief Program when they each purchased a small thrift and became a bank holding compay. Because TARP funding is based on the size of the bank holding company, not the underlying financial institution, the two insurers became eligible for billions as a result of their relatively small investments.

Lincoln National received $950 million from Treasury in July 2009, in exchange for preferred stock and warrants. It repaid the money and redeemed the stock at the end of June.

Linus Wilson, a finance professor at University of Louisiana - Lafayette, estimated that value of the Lincoln warrants is $248 million, or about $19 per warrant. Since the warrants' stock price already exceeds their exercise price, they should be attractive to investors, who Wilson said have shown a strong desire for warrants that can be exercised immediately for a profit.

Treasury has not announced when its 52,093,973 warrants for stock in The Hartford will go up for auction, but it is expected to happen within a few weeks. Wilson estimated the value of those warrants at $789 million, or $15.15 each