NEW YORK CITY (dpa-AFX) - American International Group Inc. (AIG) Thursday said it repaid an additional $1.5 billion to the US Treasury Department, as the insurer further reduced the bailout amount repayable.
AIG retired the Treasury's interest in AIA Aurora LLC - a special facility created to hold ordinary shares of the company's AIA Group Ltd. The payment was made one year ahead of schedule, AIG noted in a statement.
Following today's repayment, the government's remaining investment in AIG amounts to $45 billion. This represents a more than 75 percent reduction from $182 billion bailout provided by the Treasury during the financial downturn.
Federal Treasury still holds about 70 percent of the insurer's common stock, which represents about 35.7 billion, while the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is still owed $9 billion, which is collateralized by assets.
'In the dark days of the financial crisis, when commitments to AIG totaled $182 billion, few would have believed that we'd already be able to reduce that amount by more than 75 percent, or that we may be able to recover every single dollar invested in the company,' said Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Tim Massad.
'This demonstrates the significant progress that AIG and the government have made in restructuring the company's business so that it can repay taxpayers,' Massad added.
According to Treasury's statement, in March alone it recovered more than $14.6 billion on its investment in AIG, including $6 billion from the sale of common stock and $8.6 billion in repayments of the preferred equity interests.
The Treasury also said that more than 80 percent of the $414 billion funds disbursed for TARP have already been recovered through repayments and other income.
AIG closed Thursday's trading at $27.98, down 1.79%, on a volume of 10 million shares on the NYSE.
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