Hong Kong: Asian insurer AIA said Tuesday that US giant American International Group (AIG) had sold its remaining stake in the firm, raising $6.45 billion and completing an exit that started two years ago.
AIG offloaded its final 13.69 percent holding for HK$30.30 ($3.90) per share, AIA said in a statement, adding that it was one of Asia’s biggest secondary placements.
“This latest divestment of the remaining holding is noteworthy in AIA’s history since it marks the end of AIG’s shareholder interest in AIA,” AIA group chief executive Mark Tucker said.
However, in early Hong Kong trade AIA shares fell 0.79 percent from Friday’s close to HK$31.40, although they are still above the price at which the US firm sold up. The stock was suspended Monday pending the sale announcement.
AIG sold two-thirds of AIA in a US$20.5 billion initial public offering in Hong Kong in 2010 — one of the world’s biggest listings — as it sought to to repay the US government’s US$182 billion bailout during the financial crisis.
AIG sold further AIA shares twice this year, raising a total of $8 billion.
The US firm’s move to fully exit AIA followed last week’s US Treasury sale of all of its remaining shares in AIG for $7.6 billion, taking Washington’s net profit on its 2008 bailout to $22.7 billion.
The Treasury continues to hold warrants to purchase 2.7 million AIG shares.
The bailout of what was once the world’s largest insurer included equity and loans from the Treasury and Federal Reserve as the firm was swept into a liquidity crisis by its exposure to insurance on bad mortgage-backed securities.
At the time, it was feared that AIG’s collapse would bring down buyers of the swaps as well, sparking a chain reaction throughout the global financial system.
But the rescue was deeply controversial, with critics saying the money put into AIG simply went toward paying off its counterparties, rather than having them take losses on their AIG-related investments.
In the past four years, AIG has been reduced in size by nearly half through restructuring and sales of some of its units.
On December 9, AIG announced it was selling up to 90 percent of its aircraft leasing firm ILFC to a group of Chinese investors, in a deal that values ILFC at $5.28 billion.
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