All's well that ends well ... maybe
Bailout Over, U.S. Treasury Plans to Sell A.I.G. Shares
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED, NYT
9:01 p.m. | Updated
Taxpayers will soon shed their last holdings in the American International Group, more than four years after a rescue by the federal government during the most chaotic days of the financial crisis.
The Treasury Department said on Monday that it planned to sell all of its remaining 234.2 million shares, or 15.9 percent of the company, in a public offering. At current prices, that would raise more than $7.8 billion.
The stock sale, if completed, would realize a goal few dreamed possible in September 2008. As Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, government officials scrambled to rescue A.I.G., an insurance giant that had become deeply intertwined with many Wall Street and European banks through its underwriting of credit-default swaps. The fear was that a collapse of the company could bring down the global financial system.
In the crisis, the government ended up extending lifelines to a number of financial institutions and to companies like General Motors. But it was the bailout of A.I.G. that resonated most deeply among the American public as a symbol of risk-taking and excess on Wall Street - and Washington's complicity in it. At one point, the government had made more than $182 billion available to support A.I.G. Billions of that went to pay claims that the banks had on the insurer.
(More here.)
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED, NYT
9:01 p.m. | Updated
Taxpayers will soon shed their last holdings in the American International Group, more than four years after a rescue by the federal government during the most chaotic days of the financial crisis.
The Treasury Department said on Monday that it planned to sell all of its remaining 234.2 million shares, or 15.9 percent of the company, in a public offering. At current prices, that would raise more than $7.8 billion.
The stock sale, if completed, would realize a goal few dreamed possible in September 2008. As Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, government officials scrambled to rescue A.I.G., an insurance giant that had become deeply intertwined with many Wall Street and European banks through its underwriting of credit-default swaps. The fear was that a collapse of the company could bring down the global financial system.
In the crisis, the government ended up extending lifelines to a number of financial institutions and to companies like General Motors. But it was the bailout of A.I.G. that resonated most deeply among the American public as a symbol of risk-taking and excess on Wall Street - and Washington's complicity in it. At one point, the government had made more than $182 billion available to support A.I.G. Billions of that went to pay claims that the banks had on the insurer.
(More here.)
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