employees . as explained below , pursuant to sfas 123 ( r ) , the charge to income for awards made to retirement-eligible employees is accelerated based on the dates the retirement rules are met . cap and certain other awards provide that participants who meet certain age and years of service conditions may continue to vest in all or a portion of the award without remaining employed by the company during the entire vesting period , so long as they do not compete with citigroup during that time . beginning in 2006 , awards to these retirement-eligible employees are recognized in the year prior to the grant in the same manner as cash incentive compensation is accrued . however , awards granted in january 2006 were required to be expensed in their entirety at the date of grant . prior to 2006 , all awards were recognized ratably over the stated vesting period . see note 1 to the consolidated financial statements on page 122 for the impact of adopting sfas 123 ( r ) . from 2003 to 2007 , citigroup granted restricted or deferred shares annually under the citigroup ownership program ( cop ) to eligible employees . this program replaced the wealthbuilder , citibuilder and citigroup ownership stock option programs . under cop , eligible employees received either restricted or deferred shares of citigroup common stock that vest after three years . the last award under this program was in 2007 . unearned compensation expense associated with the stock grants represents the market value of citigroup common stock at the date of grant and is recognized as a charge to income ratably over the vesting period , except for those awards granted to retirement-eligible employees . the charge to income for awards made to retirement-eligible employees is accelerated based on the dates the retirement rules are met . on july 17 , 2007 , the personnel and compensation committee of citigroup 2019s board of directors approved the management committee long- term incentive plan ( mc ltip ) , under the terms of the shareholder- approved 1999 stock incentive plan . the mc ltip provides members of the citigroup management committee , including the ceo , cfo and the named executive officers in the citigroup proxy statement , an opportunity to earn stock awards based on citigroup 2019s performance . each participant received an equity award that will be earned based on citigroup 2019s performance for the period from july 1 , 2007 to december 31 , 2009 . three periods will be measured for performance ( july 1 , 2007 to december 31 , 2007 , full year 2008 and full year 2009 ) . the ultimate value of the award will be based on citigroup 2019s performance in each of these periods with respect to ( 1 ) total shareholder return versus citigroup 2019s current key competitors and ( 2 ) publicly stated return on equity ( roe ) targets measured at the end of each calendar year . if , in any of the three performance periods , citigroup 2019s total shareholder return does not exceed the median performance of the peer group , the participants will not receive award shares for that period . the awards will generally vest after 30 months . in order to receive the shares , a participant generally must be a citigroup employee on january 5 , 2010 . the final expense for each of the three calendar years will be adjusted based on the results of the roe tests . no awards were earned for 2008 or 2007 because performance targets were not met . no new awards were made under the mc ltip since the initial award in july 2007 . on january 22 , 2008 , special retention stock awards were made to key senior executive officers and certain other members of senior management . the awards vest ratably over two- or four-year periods . executives must remain employed through the vesting dates to receive the shares awarded , except in cases of death , disability , or involuntary termination other than for gross misconduct . unlike cap , post-employment vesting is not provided for participants who meet specified age and years of service conditions . shares subject to some of the awards are exempted from the stock ownership commitment . a summary of the status of citigroup 2019s unvested stock awards as of december 31 , 2008 , and changes during the 12 months ended december 31 , 2008 , is presented below : unvested stock awards shares weighted average grant date fair value .
what was the approximate value of the shares that vested during 2008
( 1 ) the weighted average market value of the vestings during 2008 was approximately $ 22.31 per share . as of december 31 , 2008 , there was $ 3.3 billion of total unrecognized compensation cost related to unvested stock awards net of the forfeiture provision . that cost is expected to be recognized over a weighted-average period of 2.6 years. .