AIG has retrenched the derivatives unit responsible for housing-market losses. The company has sold more than $75 billion worth of businesses and assets since 2008, including a U.S. consumer lender, a Russian bank, an Israeli mortgage insurer and its New York headquarters building. The sale of plane-leasing business International Lease Finance Corp. in May 2014 was the last major divestiture, AIG said at the time.
Among the biggest deals that helped AIG repay the rescue were the $16 billion sale of Asian insurer American Life Insurance Co. to MetLife and the divestiture of AIA in four public offerings that raised a total of $35 billion.
The U.S. wound down the rescue through six share sales after owning as much as 92 percent of AIG. Following the final sale in December 2012, the Treasury Department had recouped more than $200 billion, giving the U.S. a profit of about $22.7 billion on the bailout.
Health Disclosure
“We are not going to stop here and take a rest,” Benmosche wrote to employees in a memo at the time. “We are not at the finish line.”
On Oct. 25, 2010, weeks after announcing AIG’s road map to independence, Benmosche told staff that he had begun treatment for cancer, without disclosing the type, and said he’d step down in 2012. Benmosche later decided he’s stay on until the first quarter of 2015, then moved up his departure to August 2014.
Just prior to leaving AIG, Benmosche sat for an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Betty Liu at his Croatian villa. He told Liu that he felt he’d completed his goals for AIG, and explained his decision to depart by citing advice his mother once gave him.
“My mother told me, ‘Don’t wait too long,’ and I’m glad I didn’t wait too long,” Benmosche said. “She said, ‘Live your life when you’re healthy enough to live it.’”