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A holding company, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in insurance and insurance related activities in the United States and abroad. View More
We know what the truly obsessive shareholders of the insurance giant 
American International Group will be doing tonight: digesting the company's 106-page quarterly filing and its 78-page financial supplement to its earnings announcement ahead of its conference call tomorrow morning.
The news is fairly ugly. A.I.G. lost $7.8 billion during the quarter, missing analysts' expectations by a wide margin. It was forced to write down $9.1 billion on the value of its credit-default swaps. Its investment portfolio lost $6.1 billion.
It announced plans to raise a huge amount of capital to boost its balance sheet and offset some of those losses. A.I.G. is issuing common stock and equity units to raise $7.5 billion, and it says it will raise another $5 billion by issuing bonds at a later date.
It also said that it will replace its chief financial officer,Steve Bensinger, who was appointed vice chairman.
These all sound like rational, thoughtful moves for a risk-management company to make, especially one that has found it so difficult to value risk during this credit crunch.
But this move might throw some investors for a loop: A.I.G. said it was increasing its dividend by 10 percent.
That's right. At the same time the company says it needs to raise piles and piles of new capital, it plans to throw a chunk of it right back at its shareholders in the form of an increased cash dividend. While some shareholders will rightfully be upset that the common stock offering will dilute their shares, it's not clear that boosting their quarterly payout is the best way to appease them.
Call it the "easy come, easy go" cash-management strategy.
The quarter's results will almost certainly raise the question of chief executiveMartin Sullivan's fate at the helm of the insurance giant. In February, investors staged a mini-revolt after the company announced that its credit-default losses during the fourth quarter of 2007 were nearly six times what it had predicted.
It was less than six months ago that Sullivan told investors there was "close to zero" chance that A.I.G. would sustain economic losses from its investments.
Will tomorrow's conference call be Sullivan's last? Stay tuned.
American International Group will be doing tonight: digesting the company's 106-page quarterly filing and its 78-page financial supplement to its earnings announcement ahead of its conference call tomorrow morning. The news is fairly ugly. A.I.G. lost $7.8 billion during the quarter, missing analysts' expectations by a wide margin. It was forced to write down $9.1 billion on the value of its credit-default swaps. Its investment portfolio lost $6.1 billion.
It announced plans to raise a huge amount of capital to boost its balance sheet and offset some of those losses. A.I.G. is issuing common stock and equity units to raise $7.5 billion, and it says it will raise another $5 billion by issuing bonds at a later date.
It also said that it will replace its chief financial officer,
Steve Bensinger, who was appointed vice chairman. These all sound like rational, thoughtful moves for a risk-management company to make, especially one that has found it so difficult to value risk during this credit crunch.
But this move might throw some investors for a loop: A.I.G. said it was increasing its dividend by 10 percent.
That's right. At the same time the company says it needs to raise piles and piles of new capital, it plans to throw a chunk of it right back at its shareholders in the form of an increased cash dividend. While some shareholders will rightfully be upset that the common stock offering will dilute their shares, it's not clear that boosting their quarterly payout is the best way to appease them.
Call it the "easy come, easy go" cash-management strategy.
The quarter's results will almost certainly raise the question of chief executive
Martin Sullivan's fate at the helm of the insurance giant. In February, investors staged a mini-revolt after the company announced that its credit-default losses during the fourth quarter of 2007 were nearly six times what it had predicted. It was less than six months ago that Sullivan told investors there was "close to zero" chance that A.I.G. would sustain economic losses from its investments.
Will tomorrow's conference call be Sullivan's last? Stay tuned.
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