AIG Takes Full Disclosure Route

March 16, 2009

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Tyler Durden reports on AIG’s disclosure of recipients of public funds and speculates that its new transparency policy means the bonus recipient list will be forthcoming. (Andrew Cuomo has taken additional measures to guide AIG in that direction. See also "Furious Cuomo Demands AIG Bonus Details" by Henry Blodget at Clusterstock.)

AIG Takes Full Disclosure Route

Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Late Sunday, AIG, which all of a sudden "recognizes the importance of upholding a high degree of transparency with respect to the use of public funds", finally caved to pressure to disclose the full list of recipients benefiting from collateral payments after its repeated rescues. No major surprises among the bank recipients: the top 5 include Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Calyon. Additionally, of the top 20 beneficiaries, 14 banks are non-domestic!

Payments were made as follows:

$22.4 billion to satisfy CDS collateral postings by AIG Financial Products;
$27.1 billion in payments made from Maiden Lane III To AIG FP counterparties;
$43.7 billion in direct support to AIG securities lending counterparties;

US Taxpayers will be thrilled to discover that of the $93.2 billion of their money spent to prevent financial collapse, over 70% went to bail out non-domestic banks.

Another $12.1 billion was spent to bailout out municipalities under Guaranteed Investment Agreements, the main beneficiaries being California and Virginia, both receiving just north of $1 billion.

Also, can someone please explain why Ken Griffen’s Citadel and Paloma Securities, both private hedge funds, have received $200 million in taxpayer cash each?

In total, over $105 billion has been spent so far to bail out assorted entities that have been so far entangled in the AIG web.

Considering AIG’s newfound understanding of the importance of upholding transparency regarding the use of public funds, the U.S. public now fully expects to see a list of all bonus recipients since the company’s collapse on September 16, 2008.