AIG sells American Life unit to Metlife for $15.5 billion
08 Mar 2010
American International Group Inc. (AIG) today sold its foreign life insurance unit American Life Insurance Co. (Alico) to MetLife for about $15.5 billion in cash and stock.
AIG said it will receive $6.8 billion in cash and around $8.7 billion in MetLife equity securities for the unit, which has around 20 million customers worldwide.
This is AIG's second major sale in the space within a week; on 2 March the beleaguered insurance giant announced a definitive agreement for the sale of its Asian assets, the AIA Group Limited (AIA), to Britain's largest insurer Prudential Plc. for approximately $35.5 billion (See: AIG sells Asian assets to Prudential for $35.5 billion).
On 27 February, AIG, which narrowly missed bankruptcy with the largest government bailout in US history, said that it may require additional US government support after incurring an $8.9 billion net loss in its fourth-quarter (See: AIG says $182 billion bailout not enough, wants more).
AIG, which posted a $10.9-billion loss last year in the midst of the global financial crisis, said that the fourth quarter net loss of $8.9 billion was a far improvement from the $61.7 billion loss for the same period in 2008 and the $100 billion loss for the whole of 2008.
AIG made a net loss of $12.3 billion for the whole of 2009.