Asian markets mixed after US bails out insurer AIG

NF Reporter · 09-17-2008, 06:02 AM

AP - Asian stocks turned in a mixed performance Wednesday, giving up early gains as a U.S. plan to rescue troubled insurer AIG failed to persuade many investors that recent financial turmoil would soon ease.

Full Story...

waltky · 10-11-2008, 05:21 AM

Asian markets on the downslide again...

Asia's Markets Follow Wall Street With Panic Selling
10 October 2008 - Investors in Asia sold shares in a panic, following the lead of Wall Street. Most stock markets saw some of the biggest price declines the October 1987 share crash.

Quote:

Four major stock markets in Asia plunged more than seven percent Friday. Every share price index in the region was down sharply. Vikas Kawatra, head of institutional research for Kim Eng Securities in Bangkok, says the speed of the market capitulation caught many off guard.

"We don't know how these fast-turning events are impacting which country and which bank and which insurance company - so it's all too scary at this stage and it would be quite naive to make any judgement on such sharp moves. It's fear and it's absolute fear," he said.

Kawatra says the rapid selling at least offers the hope the contagion may soon be over. The bankruptcy of a real estate investment trust and insurer in Japan sent the Nikkei 225 stock average falling over nine percent. It has lost nearly 53 percent in a year.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed seven-point-two percent. Share prices on Philippine and Australian markets both closed over eight percent lower. In Seoul, the Kospi lost four percent and Mumbai's main BSE index sank seven percent. Asia's sell-off followed the seven-percent loss on U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average Thursday.

More than $6 trillion has been wiped off share markets this week as panic swept across the world. Economists already are looking at the long-term fallout from the financial rout. Most expect widespread recession for much of the coming year.

More VOA News - Asia's Markets Follow Wall Street With Panic Selling

waltky · 10-16-2008, 06:31 AM

A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go, high ho the dairy-o, a hunting we will go...

AIG Execs Spend On English Hunting Trip
$86,000 Tab Latest Executive Expense After Receiving More Than $120m In Taxpayer Money

Quote:

A handful of top executives from American International Group Inc. spent thousands of dollars during a recent English hunting trip, even as the New York-based insurer asked for an additional $37.8 billion loan from the Federal Reserve. "This was an annual event for customers of the AIG property casualty insurance companies in the U.K. and Europe, and planned months before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's loan to AIG," company spokesman Peter Tulupman said Wednesday. AIG officials declined to say which AIG executives attended the trip, which reports have said racked up an $86,000 tab. News of the trip surfaced just days after AIG received an additional $37.8 billion loan from the Federal Reserve, on top of a previous $85 billion emergency loan granted last month.

The company said last week it would stop "all non-essential conferences, meetings and activities that do not clearly maximize value and service given the current conditions." Last month, and just days after the U.S. government stepped in to save AIG with a $85 billion taxpayer-funded loan, the company picked up a $440,000 tab for a week-long retreat at a posh California resort for top-performing insurance agents. Lawmakers investigating AIG's meltdown said they were enraged that executives of AIG's main U.S. life insurance subsidiary spent a lavish amount on the retreat, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings. Last week, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino called the event "despicable."

At that time, AIG issued a statement saying that the "business event" was planned months before the Sept. 16 bailout and that it was held for top-producing independent life insurance agents, not AIG employees. Of the 100 attendees, only 10 worked for the AIG unit hosting the event, it said. The insurer said Chief Executive Edward Liddy sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson "clarifying the circumstances" of the event. In the letter, Liddy assured Paulson that AIG is "reevaluating the costs of all aspects of our operations in light of the new circumstances in which we are all operating." The insurer then said it canceled a future California retreat that was to be held later this month. Regarding the recent hunting trip, "We regret that this event was not canceled," Tulupman said Wednesday. (Yea right, anybody fired over it?)

"AIG's priority is to continue to focus on maximizing the value of our businesses and protecting our policyholders so we can repay the Federal Reserve loan and emerge as a vital, ongoing business," he said. Shares of AIG fell 37 cents, or 13.2 percent, to $2.43 Wednesday.

AIG Execs Spend On English Hunting Trip, $86,000 Tab Latest Executive Expense After Receiving More Than $120 In Taxpayer Money - CBS News

pinkzz · 10-17-2008, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NF Reporter

AP - Asian stocks turned in a mixed performance Wednesday, giving up early gains as a U.S. plan to rescue troubled insurer AIG failed to persuade many investors that recent financial turmoil would soon ease.

Full Story...

MANY THNX TO US GOVT AS IT WOULD RESCUE AIG BECAUSE I HAVE INVESTED IN AIG'S STOCKS.

_______________________________________________________________

dallas fha loans family dentistry raleigh

waltky · 10-24-2008, 09:18 AM

Now they want even more???...

AIG may need more cash due to restructuring
Fri Oct 24, 2008 - American International Group Inc has named two executives to lead its restructuring, and its chief executive warned that $120 billion in emergency federal cash extended to the insurer may not be enough.

Quote:

CEO Edward Liddy, in a television interview on PBS on Wednesday, said that whether it would be enough was "very much a function of two things: "One, our ability to stop the bleeding that we have in the financial products areas ... Also, what happens to the capital markets." Liddy said the crux of the problem was declines in the market value of its credit default swaps, requiring it to post more and more collateral. He stressed that AIG was working to rid itself of thorny liabilities that drove $25 billion in losses over the past three quarters, and had shut down the financial products unit that was the source of the losses.

AIG said on Thursday that Paula Rosput Reynolds, a former chief executive of Seattle-based insurer Safeco, would become chief restructuring officer, overseeing divestiture of assets and serving as AIG's main liaison with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which provided AIG with an $85 billion loan. The company has since received an additional line of credit. Richard Booth, AIG's chief administrative officer, is now also to be in charge of transition planning. Booth will oversee the separation of companies that AIG sells off. Reynolds and Booth will report to Liddy, who was named AIG CEO in conjunction with the government's bailout.

Separately, AIG said it hired New York public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to help it respond to the "huge volume of requests for information we are receiving from customers, employees and the media." A spokesman declined to say how much it will pay the firm for these services. Spending at AIG has come under scrutiny since the federal bailout, leading the insurer to cancel several events it had planned, freeze bonus plans for officers of the financial products unit, and stop severance payments to former chief executive Martin Sullivan.

AIG, which had been the world's largest publicly traded insurer, was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by losses on credit default swaps it wrote to guarantee mortgage-linked debt. Saved by the $85 billion federal bailout in mid-September, and the additional line of credit, AIG is scrambling to sell off parts of its business outside its insurance core in a bid to quickly pay off the government debt, which carries heavy interest and fees.

Source

waltky · 11-11-2008, 03:52 AM

Like pourin' money down a rat-hole...

Newly Bailed-Out AIG Reports Huge Loss
NOVEMBER 11, 2008 : With a less-onerous government bailout plan in hand, American International Group Inc. reported a $24.5 billion quarterly loss Monday due to big investment losses and another $7.1 billion in write-downs on its portfolio of credit derivatives.

Quote:

The new $150 billion rescue package for AIG -- the largest government loan to a single company -- that also was announced Monday eases the terms of the previous deal, and officials portrayed it as helping the company get some of its most serious problems under control. "This is a much better arrangement for us," said Chief Executive Edward Liddy. He said the revised deal gave AIG "more breathing room" and "more time if we need it" to pursue its previously disclosed plan to sell off major units to help repay the government.

The dismal earnings underline the fact that the new bailout plan doesn't completely eliminate the threats AIG faces. If financial conditions were to worsen, the company could be forced to take billions more in losses and have to go back to the government for additional financing. AIG has had no success making any of those sales. Mr. Liddy said on a conference call that the company would announce "several key dispositions" by the end of the year. Competitors meanwhile are eagerly trying to snap up AIG's customers and employees, putting added pressure on the company to complete the sales.

AIG's shareholders were critical of the initial government deal and have pushed for improved terms for the insurer. "It's a better outcome, overall," said Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg, the former AIG chief executive who heads a firm that is AIG's largest shareholder and also has a substantial personal stake. "It's progress." The deal takes some pressure off of AIG by dropping the interest rate on a central part of the government package -- a $60 billion loan -- from above 10% to closer to 6%. On the other hand, AIG also will have to pay 10% interest in exchange for a $40 billion infusion of capital from the Treasury Department, creating a significant new burden on the company.

MORE