Market Currents

• Tuesday, December 22, 2009

• 17:18 PM Following its downgrade of AIG's (AIG) plane-leasing unit, Moody's cuts its consumer lending unit to junk status for the same reason: expecting that it's going to lose support from its parent next November. [[AIG]] -0.3% AH. 1 Comment
• 10:55 AM Sources say AIG (AIG +5%) has canned preparations to IPO its Chartis property-casualty unit after CEO Robert Benmosche decided the business is a core AIG holding. Sandler O'Neill's Paul Newsome explains: "Public valuations for property-casualty companies are very low by historic standards, so anybody thinking about doing a public offering right now would really have to think twice about that." 3 Comments

• Monday, December 21, 2009

• 16:45 PM Kenneth Feinberg has revised the government's pay plans for [[AIG]] to give an extra $4.26M to an unnamed employee who decided to stay with the insurer. The "critical" employee (not CEO Robert Benmosche) is one of the firm's top 25 managers and makes a $450K salary. Comment!
• 14:36 PM Janet Tavakoli says it's time to claw back the subsidized money [[AIG]] paid to Goldman Sachs (GS) - and to do it now, before Goldman pays it out in bonuses. 3 Comments

• Friday, December 18, 2009

• 16:57 PM Figuring parent [[AIG]] is wavering in its support for its plane-leasing unit, International Lease Finance Corp., Moody's slashes ILFC's rating well into junk, putting more pressure on AIG - who says it's committed to supporting the for-sale unit through Nov. 15. Comment!

• Thursday, December 17, 2009

• 12:09 PM AIG (AIG -1.9%) puts off the $500M divestiture of its fund-management unit to January as clients ask for more information. The fund manager, renamed PineBridge Investments, managed $89.7B as of September. AIG agreed to sell the unit to Richard Li's Pacific Century in September. Comment!

• Tuesday, December 15, 2009

• 08:43 AM "Many people think there was no penalty for the executives at AIG when it did poorly and that they need longer-term compensation so they don't benefit from taking inordinate amounts of risk. But if you look at where they've been this year, they've been pretty much wiped out." - CEO Robert Benmosche 3 Comments

• Saturday, December 12, 2009

• 07:30 AM The Wall Street Journal analyzes Goldman Sachs' (GS) dealings with [[AIG]] and finds the bank played a bigger part in fueling AIG's bad mortgage bets than it let on - even in the deals involving other banks. 4 Comments

• Friday, December 11, 2009

• 11:57 AM Government paymaster Kenneth Feinberg follows through on plans to limit pay to $500K for middle executives (26th to 100th highest paid) at four of six companies in his purview ([[AIG]], [[C]], GM, GMAC). Fewer than a dozen exemptions were granted. Total cash can't exceed 45% of total pay. Chrysler and Chrysler Financial already weren't paying midlevel employees more than $500K. 4 Comments
• 11:42 AM As expected, government paymaster Kenneth Feinberg sets a $500K salary limit for hundreds of middle executives at four companies in his purview ([[AIG]], [[C]], GM, GMAC) - with fewer than a dozen exceptions. (MW) 4 Comments

• Thursday, December 10, 2009

• 15:26 PM BofA (BAC) may have jumped out of TARP just in time, from a pay-restrictions standpoint: Government paymaster Kenneth Feinberg may announce as early as tomorrow his rulings on pay for the employees ranking 26th to 100th in compensation at the six firms still in his arena: Citigroup (C), [[AIG]], GM, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. (earlier: Citigroup's plans) 2 Comments
• 10:24 AM AIG (AIG) has leapfrogged its competitors to reclaim its position as top seller of fixed annuities to bank customers. Its secret: A new name. 3 Comments

• Wednesday, December 9, 2009

• 14:17 PM A TARP-report chart on credit-default swap spreads indicates some continuing market doubts that [[AIG]] has the same outlook as its bailed-out compadres. Comment!
• 10:38 AM Forget too big to fail, some Wall Street firms are too big to punish: Among the more than a dozen firms that have gotten SEC get-out-of-jail cards since Jan. 2007 are some of Wall Street's biggest, including Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and AIG. 6 Comments

• Tuesday, December 8, 2009

• 07:54 AM Sources say U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg will exempt some AIG (AIG) executives from a $500,000 salary cap after at least five employees threatened to quit. Feinberg said in October (.pdf) base salaries wouldn't exceed $500K except in cases where there was "good cause" to pay more. 9 Comments

• Monday, December 7, 2009

• 17:02 PM [[AIG]] taps a federal credit line for a third time - $200M for its plane-leasing unit ILFC, which has been frozen out of credit markets because of its association with the bailed-out insurer. ILFC is the biggest customer of Boeing (BA) and Airbus, and is paying 6.025 points over Libor and the rate it got on an earlier $2B in October. 3 Comments