Insurance giant American International Group on Thursday repaid US taxpayers another part of a massive government bailout extended during the financial crisis, officials said.
The Treasury Department said that it had received $2.15 billion from AIG, an additional repayment of its rescue from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
The repayment was funded by proceeds from AIG’s sale of its Taiwan-based life insurance subsidiary Nan Shan, the Treasury said in a statement.
“This is another important milestone in AIG’s remarkable turnaround,” Tim Massad, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial stability, said in the statement.
“We continue to make progress in recovering the taxpayers’ investments in AIG,” he said. With AIG’s $2.15 billion repayment, the US governments remaining outstanding investment in AIG — through the Treasury — is $51 billion, the Treasury said.
The TARP was launched in late 2008 by the administration of then-president George W. Bush to save the financial sector from collapse.
Once the world’s largest insurer, AIG received more than $180 billion from the government, mostly from the Federal Reserve, to help cover investments and liabilities — many related to complex derivatives — that dissolved amid the collapse of the US real estate bubble. The Treasury invested some $68 billion into the company to keep it afloat so that it did not pull down weakened banks with it.
AIG sold off units AIA and Metlife to pay off much of its debt to the US authorities. AIG president and chief executive Robert Benmosche said the Nan Shan sale to Ruen Chen Investment Holding was “a great result” for all concerned.
“We continue to make progress in helping the Treasury and taxpayers recoup their investment in AIG,” Benmosche said in a separate statement.
Washington, Aug 18, 2011 (AFP)
