(Bloomberg) — American International Group Inc., built by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg into the world's largest insurer, has shrunk by half through a series of asset sales that ended this week with the divestiture of a plane-leasing unit.
The contraction began in 2008, the year AIG needed a U.S. bailout, and included the sale of units from Hong Kong to Israel, and real estate from New York to Tokyo. The deals helped narrow the company's focus and generated about $79 billion for AIG, which returned the last of the taxpayer funds in 2012.
"They sold off a great many of the crown jewels," Greenberg, who led AIG for almost four decades through 2005, said in a 2011 interview on Bloomberg Television. "How long is it going to take to rebuild?"
The insurer's market value is about $76 billion, compared with $148 billion at the end of 2007. The employee count is down 45% in the six years ended Dec. 31 to 64,000.
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