The US Treasury's sale of its remaining stake in American International Group Inc will fetch US$7.6 billion, bringing the government a total profit of US$22.7 billion from its crisis-era bailout of the insurer.
The share offering will close the chapter on one of the most politically contentious rescues of 2008, which ultimately gave AIG up to US$182 billion of government support. At one point, the government estimated that it would never recover all of the bailout money, but as AIG restructured and returned to viability.
AIG said, yesterday, that the Treasury agreed to sell 234.2 million shares to investors for US$32.50 apiece. The insurer said that Treasury has additional AIG warrants that it can sell to boost the government's US$22.7 billion of total returns so far.
"No taxpayer should be pleased that the government had to rescue this company, but all taxpayers should be pleased with today's announcement, ending the largest of the government's financial industry bail-outs with a profit to the Treasury Department," Jim Millstein, the Treasury's former chief restructuring officer, said Monday in a statement.
Reuters