The much-maligned American International Group (AIG) took a major step toward reinventing itself this weekend when it removed a sign on its downtown Manhattan offices, and renamed part of itself “AIU Holdings Ltd.” Pundits could take advantage of this with a little gallows humor, such as “AIU? Not so good, but thanks for asking?” But the more serious should ask the...
Financial Services Industry Archive
March 2009
Did we really need to pay those American International Group traders $165 million in bonuses to keep them around? The vast majority of Americans say “No.” On the other hand, more Americans would know about a wife swap than a credit default swap. AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy thinks these bonus babies are worth it. At Wednesday’s House Financial Services Committee hearing he...
Today’s New York Times story piled outrage on outrage. American International Group was already paying taxpayer-funded bonuses to the rogue executives who put the insurer into a trillion-dollar hole. Now AIG was suing the Internal Revenue Service for $306 million, which would be funneled through off-shore corporations to pay other executives. A closer look at the suit, however, puts some...
Investment banks can thank the healthcare sector — particularly the drug industry — for providing much-needed fee income from mergers and acquisitions so far this year. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were all able to remain dominant in M&A league tables of financial advisers on a global basis, according to a Mergermarket M&A roundup for the first quarter released...
American International Group Chief Executive Edward Liddy has been valiant in his defense of a $165 million bonus package given to executives at the troubled insurer’s Financial Products unit, the same unit that nearly brought AIG to bankruptcy and forced the government to offer the company a $170 billion bailout. But as legislators pointed out in the House Financial Services Committee...
When former American International Group Chairman and Chief Executive Maurice “Hank” Greenberg was booted out of AIG in March 2005 for allegedly cooking the books (a charge he denies), he didn’t go far. He moved from AIG’s comfortable headquarters in lower Manhattan to the equally comfortable headquarters of C.V. Starr in midtown where he now enjoys the luxury of the...
Back in the glory days of American Insurance Group, then Chief Executive Martin Sullivan had an image problem. No, it wasn’t the fact that his empire was about to collapse, or that he was making only $25 million a year (far less than many other CEOs). It was that AIG, the largest insurer, was virtually unknown outside the financial world. How could he make AIG a household name?...
Let’s get serious. The lynch mob that’s out to hang those American International Group (AIG) executives with their $165 million in bonuses is going to fail. First of all, their rope is too short to reach across the Atlantic Ocean. The fat bonus checks have already been delivered to traders in AIG’s Financial Products unit, which is based in London. Chances are these Brits...
Fourteen firms had to settle charges of illegal trading with the SEC at the beginning of the month. Charged with so-called trading ahead between 1999 and 2005, they had to pay a collective $70 million. Trading ahead occurs when a firm places its own trade orders before those of its customers and recognizes extra gains as a result. Sure, $70 million may be chump change on Wall Street, as other...
In a famous scene from a Pink Panther movie, Inspector Clouseau arrests a street vendor in front of a bank but ignores a robbery taking place inside. Quite reminiscent of the noise coming out of Congress over the $165 million in bonuses going to American International Group’s credit default swaps unit. The hoopla is obscuring an even nastier nest of snakes: the billions that were funneled...
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