strand tramp wrote:

AIG is a vast holding company, but their primary business is insurance, and the life division is 48.6% of their revenue.

yeah, well this kid is in the life division, and he’s worried about his job because they are selling it. i don’t really know much more than that. i assumed you guys would. i haven’t really followed it.

strand tramp wrote:

did you say AIG had announced the sale of “their insurance unit”? do you know anything about the company beyond the stock symbol?

second hand information, that’s why I asked. my coworker’s brother works in the accounting department there and called him in a bit of a panic the other day thinking he’d lose his job. i just asked my coworker, it’s their “life” insurance unit….does that sound right?

anyways, i was just asking a question

Hobo91 wrote:

Matt, i still call total b.s. on the whole spending. it’s totally excessive.

they need to spend and entertain -yes. keep it under the radar and in in control – especially now.

it would be comparable to Roboerts & Hoboken entertaing a 10k dinner with some sweet arse wine and then charging it to the city….while he’s running a 12 mio defecit.

Why is it excessive? The insurance subsidiaries are very profitable. If they want to use some of these profits to entertain the independent agents that sell their products, then what is wrong with that? It is those profits that make these units so valuable and it is that value that will be used to repay the government when they sell these units to the highest bidder.

And you analysis is way off. AIG didn’t lose money in this unit. Their losses were mostly out of London where one of their units was selling insurance on mortgage backed paper (Credit Default Swaps – CDS for short). So likening this unit to Hoboken isn’t really accurate. Again, the insurance subsidiaries holding these events are very profitable and very valuable. But the AIG Financial Products unit that wrote lots of CDS contracts was heavily exposed to subprime mortgages and it is this unit that dragged AIG over the cliff.

they need to spend and entertain -yes. keep it under the radar and in in control – especially now.

it would be comparable to Roboerts & Hoboken entertaing a 10k dinner with some sweet arse wine and then charging it to the city….while he’s running a 12 mio defecit.

Hobo91 wrote:

Hats of to AIG. They truly understand the meaning of regressive tax. After getting an $85 billion buyout by the government and tax payers they hold a 440k covention for top employees. the market rips into their blatant excessive spending – so they decide to have another convention at the Ritz Carlton. at least they are going out in style.

This was an event for independent insurance agents/distributors. These are the people that generate the business at the very profitable insurance subsidiaries. This was not an event for top employees. The only top employees there were there for the express purpose of interacting with AIG’s independent sales force (who are not AIG employees). Without these sales people, AIG has no value so if AIG has to throw some marketing money at these folks to make them happy, then so be it.