AIG to sell AIA stock for bailout money

American International Group Inc. plans to sell part of its stake in American International Assurance Co. Ltd. in a $6 billion deal designed to help the insurer repay its government bailout.

New York-based American International said Sunday, March 4, it would sell about 1.7 billion shares of AIA Group Ltd., as the company is known, to institutional investors at a range of between HK$27.15 and HK$27.50 ($3.50 and $3.54). Net proceeds of the deal, which is expected to price by Tuesday, will reduce the balance due to the Treasury Department on the government's preferred equity interest in a special-purpose vehicle through which AIG holds the AIA shares.

Hong Kong-based AIA Group is a $107.9 billion-asset insurer separated from AIG in 2009 and marked for disposal. The company, the third-largest insurer in Asia, went public in October 2010 after a proposed $35.5 billion sale to Prudential plc fell through.

AIG is selling about one-third of its remaining stake in AIA in the offering, leaving it with about a 20% interest in the company once the deal closes.

AIG received $182 billion from the U.S. government during the global financial crisis, necessitating a scramble by the company to sell assets and raise funds. Treasury raised about $34 billion through asset sales, $20 billion in the AIA initial public offering and a further $9 billion when AIG floated post-bailout shares, but much of the remaining tab has to be paid for by AIG's monetizing its stake in AIA and by Treasury's eventually selling down its 77% stake in AIG.

The company announced another small money-raising effort on Friday, saying that it had sold its entire $500 million stake in private equity giant Blackstone Group LP. AIG had been an investor in Blackstone since the late 1990s.