NU Online News Service, July 17, 3:15 p.m. EDT

American International Group will gain approximately $2.1 billion over its initial $5 billion investment in Maiden Lane III when the Federal Reserve Board of New York completes its sale of securities held in the facility.

The Fed created Maiden Lane III in 2008 to cancel credit-default swaps that AIG had sold to protect counterparties against losses. The insurer needed to be rescued after it was unable to meet collateral calls from banks that included Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Deutsche Bank, Paribas and Societe Generale SA.

The initial investments in Maiden Lane III consisted of $24.3 billion from the Fed and $5 billion from AIG.

However, the extra $2.1 billion AIG will see above the $5 billion it paid into Maiden Lane III does not necessarily represent a gain on the company's investment, an analyst says, because the company had already taken markdowns of over $30 billion on its earnings to reflect payment of guarantees associated with the securities held in the facility.

Under the agreement in 2008 with the New York Fed that created Maiden Lane III, AIG gets its equity stake returned, interest on the loan, plus one-third of additional proceeds from the sale of the securities beyond the $24.3 billion invested by the Fed. AIG estimates that it has received $600 million in interest on its loan.

John Nadel, an analyst at Sterne Agee in New York, estimates that the Fed is getting between 30 percent and 50 percent of the face value of the securities contained in the portfolio through sales to various investment-banking firms.

He adds that the latest disclosures from the Fed and AIG confirm his estimate that the total proceeds to AIG from Maiden Lane III asset sales will ultimately total about $7.1 billion, although full details are not expected until AIG reports its second-quarter earnings Aug. 2.

Nadel says the Fed has announced bid dates for 20 underlying Collateralized Debt Obligations with face amount totaling $11.9 billion.

Bids are due for the first $3.9 billion of face amount on July 19, for another $3.5 billion on July 24, and the last $4.5 billion on July 31.

Nadel said that assuming average price-to-face of 30 percent, these auctions should result in total proceeds of $3.6 billion, with one-third of that, or $1.2 billion, going to AIG.

In its statement, AIG says it has already received $427 million in residual profits so far.

According to an AIG statement, the maximum support authorized by the U.S. government to AIG reached $182 billion in 2008, of which $21 billion was unused or expired.

Together with repayments, withdrawals, exchanges, sales, and other actions, total outstanding government support to AIG has decreased that amount by approximately 83 percent, or $152 billion, with approximately 1.06 billion shares of AIG common stock owned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as the remaining investment.

It should be noted that the $152 billion decrease only includes a reduction of original authorized support and not the Fed facilities, Maiden Lane II and Maiden Lane III.

Special Reports /

AIG to See $2.1B over Initial MLIII Investment; Analyst Says Money Is not 'Profit'

Related Stories

Recommended For You