The US Treasury said Thursday it had successfully sold $6 billion of its shares in American International Group, clawing back a bit more of the $70 billion invested rescuing the insurer in 2008. The Treasury sold off nearly 206 million shares in the group priced at $29, lowering its overall stake of AIG''''s common shares to 70 percent from 77 percent.
That was a 1.5 percent discount to the closing market price for AIG of $29.45 on Wednesday. AIG itself took up half of the offering, and the rest went to other investors. The Treasury said that the share sale together with Wednesday''''s announcement that AIG would also pay Treasury $8.5 billion for money the government put into AIG entities in the rescue would cut its remaining investment in the insurer to $37.8 billion. "Today is another important step in our efforts to recover the taxpayer''''s investment in AIG," Treasury assistant secretary Tim Massad said in a statement.