AIG pays back $1.5 bn to US Treasury

Washington, March 23 (IANS) The US Treasury Department said Thursday that American International Group (AIG) repaid an additional $1.5 billion, a further step to exit from the government's financial rescue move.

After this repayment, the government's remaining investment in AIG stands at about $45 billion. During the financial crisis, the US government's support for AIG through the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York totaled $182 billion, Xinhua reported.

"In the dark days of the financial crisis, when commitments to AIG totaled $182 billion, few would have believed that we'd already be able to reduce that amount by more than 75 percent, or that we may be able to recover every single dollar invested in the company," Tim Massad, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for financial stability, said in a statement.

The AIG repayment is part of Treasury's efforts to wind down the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) - a financial bailout programme created at the height of the financial crisis to prevent a collapse of the banking system. The Treasury said more than 80 percent of the $414 billion funds disbursed for TARP have been recovered.

The Treasury has collected more than $14.6 billion on its investment in AIG in March. Earlier this month, the Treasury sold $6 billion worth of AIG common shares, bringing the government's stake in the bailed-out insurer down to about 70 percent.