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US Treasury to receive 5.75 billion dollars from AIG stock sale

Xinhua, August 7, 2012

• The U.S. Treasury said on Monday that it expected to receive 5.75 billion U.S. dollars from the latest sale of the American International Group (AIG) stock, 750 million dollars more than initially estimated, as the underwriters opted to buy additional shares.

  In a statement, the Treasury said underwriters have exercised their over-allotment option in full to purchase approximately 24.6 million additional shares of AIG common stock at the public offering price of 30.5 dollars per share.

  The Treasury announced last week that it had agreed to sell about 163.9 million AIG stock at 30.5 dollars per share with estimated total proceeds of 5 billion dollars. AIG pledged to purchase 3 billion dollars of shares.

  The offering is expected to reduce the Treasury's remaining investment in AIG to approximately 24.2 billion dollars, consisting of roughly 871.1 million shares of common stock, and bring the Treasury's stake in AIG down from 61 percent to 53 percent.

  At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve extended 182 billion dollars to AIG, the cash- trapped insurance company, through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a financial bailout program created to prevent a collapse of the banking system.

  The latest sale is part of the Treasury's ongoing efforts to wind down the TARP, and so far nearly 83 percent of the 416- billion-dollar funds disbursed under TARP have already been recovered, the statement said.

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