A.I.G. Lists Firms It Paid With Taxpayer Money

- By Kevin Yu

Amid rising pressure from Congress and taxpayers, the American International Group on Sunday released the names of dozens of financial institutions that benefited from the Federal Reserve’s decision last fall to save the giant insurer from collapse with a huge rescue loan.

Financial companies that received multibillion-dollar payments owed by A.I.G. include Goldman Sachs ($12.9 billion), Merrill Lynch ($6.8 billion), Bank of America ($5.2 billion), Citigroup ($2.3 billion) and Wachovia ($1.5 billion).

Big foreign banks also received large sums from the rescue, including Société Générale of France and Deutsche Bank of Germany, which each received nearly $12 billion; Barclays of Britain ($8.5 billion); and UBS of Switzerland ($5 billion).

A.I.G. also named the 20 largest states, starting with California, that stood to lose billions last fall because A.I.G. was holding money they had raised with bond sales.
In total, A.I.G. named nearly 80 companies and municipalities that benefited most from the Fed rescue, though many more that received smaller payments were left out.

The list, long sought by lawmakers, was released a day after the disclosure that A.I.G. was paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at the A.I.G. division where the company’s crisis originated. That drew anger from Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike on Sunday and left the Obama administration scrambling to distance itself from A.I.G.

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