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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| AIG Financial Products | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Founder | Howard Sosin |
| Defunct | 2022 |
| Fate | Bankrupt |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | OTC derivative |
| Parent | American International Group |
AIG Financial Products Corporation (AIGFP) was a subsidiary of the American International Group, headquartered in New York, New York, with major operations in London. The collapse of AIG Financial Products, headquartered in Wilton, Connecticut, is considered to have played a pivotal role in the 2008 financial crisis.
In spring 2008, AIGFP suffered enormous losses from credit default swaps that it issued and traded in earlier years. Company officials issued the swaps believing they would have to pay out few, if any, of them. But as the 2008 financial crisis worsened, many companies began to default on their debt, forcing AIGFP to assume losses far greater than anticipated.
The losses at AIGFP caused credit agencies to downgrade the credit rating of the entire AIG corporation in September 2008. The resulting liquidity crisis essentially bankrupted all of AIG. Many [who?] believed that AIG was too big to fail and that an AIG bankruptcy could cause an already fragile financial system to collapse, prompting the Federal Reserve Bank to extend an $85 billion line of credit to AIG. As a result, the Federal Reserve was issued a stock warrant for 79.9% of the equity in AIG, effectively nationalizing the world's largest insurer. Shortly after, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the treasury's desire to break up and liquidate most of AIG. The company has since sold off many of its subsidiaries to raise the cash to repay the Federal Reserve. AIG closed AIGFP in December 2022, and the subsidiary filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly after.
Howard Sosin started the group in 1987. AIGFP businesses specialize interest rate and currency swaps and, more broadly, the capital markets.
AIGFP focused principally on OTC derivatives markets and acted as principal in nearly all of its transactions involving capital markets offerings and corporate finance, investment and financial risk management products. AIGFP played key roles in the acquisition of London City Airport and, in one of the largest private equity transactions announced in 2006, the management-led buyout of Kinder Morgan.
AIGFP's commodity derivatives and commodity indices helped stimulate the development of this new asset class. AIGFP's sponsored a major study on the historical performance of commodity futures by professors Gary Gorton and K. Geert Rouwenhorst.[1] AIGFP created a specialized credit business. AIGFP focused its business on structured products like CDO's. In 2003, it absorbed subsidiary, AIG Trading Group (AIG-TG) which dealt primarily in over the counter derivatives and created the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index (DJ-AIGCI) from their offices in Greenwich, CT. At that point, the Market and Credit Risk management groups were reduced in size. The DJ-AIGCI is a leading commodity benchmark composed of 19 futures contracts on physical commodities. As of the end of June 2007, there was an estimated $38 billion invested in financial products that track the DJ-AIGCI on a global basis.[2]
From 1987 to 2004, AIGFP contributed over $5 billion to AIG’s pre-tax income. During that period, AIG's market capitalization increased from $11 billion to $181 billion, and its stock price increased from $4.50 per share to $62.34 per share.
AIGFP's trading in credit derivatives led to enormous losses.[3] These losses at AIGFP division essentially bankrupted the entire AIG operation, and forced the United States government to bail out the insurer.[4] Under CEO Edward Liddy, the decision was made to unwind AIG Financial Product's entire book of business. Gerry Pasciucco, a vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, who was not involved with AIG FP when it made its catastrophic bets, was selected to manage the unwinding of the portfolio in October 2008, after the company had effectively failed and been taken over by the Federal Reserve.[5]
The story of AIGFP losses is substantially profiled in the book The Big Short by Michael Lewis.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
AIG Financial Products Corporation (AIGFP) was a subsidiary of the American International Group, headquartered in New York, New York, with major operations in London. The collapse of AIG Financial Products, headquartered in Wilton, Connecticut, is considered to have played a pivotal role in the 2008 financial crisis. In spring 2008, AIGFP suffered enormous losses from credit default swaps that it issued and traded in earlier years. Company officials issued the swaps believing they would have to pay out few, if any, of them. But as the 2008 financial crisis worsened, many companies began to default on their debt, forcing AIGFP to assume losses far greater than anticipated. The losses at AIGFP caused credit agencies to downgrade the credit rating of the entire AIG corporation in September 2008. The resulting liquidity crisis essentially bankrupted all of AIG. Many believed that AIG was too big to fail and that an AIG bankruptcy could cause an already fragile financial system to collapse, prompting the Federal Reserve Bank to extend an $85 billion line of credit to AIG. As a result, the Federal Reserve was issued a stock warrant for 79.9% of the equity in AIG, effectively nationalizing the world's largest insurer. Shortly after, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the treasury's desire to break up and liquidate most of AIG. The company has since sold off many of its subsidiaries to raise the cash to repay the Federal Reserve. AIG closed AIGFP in December 2022, and the subsidiary filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly after.
TATA AIG General Insurance Company Limited is an Indian general insurance company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, and is a joint venture between the Tata Group and American International Group (AIG). The company is owned by the Tata Group and American International Group (AIG), with shareholding split at 74% and 26%, respectively. The company uses a multi-channel distribution model, offering products through agents, brokers, banks, and direct channels including telemarketing and digital marketing. Tata AIG holds an approximate 6% market share in the Indian general insurance sector, making it the third-largest private general insurer in India. It offers a range of general insurance products including insurance for automobile, home, personal accident, travel, energy, marine, property and casualty as well as specialized financial lines.
The AIG bonus payments controversy began in March 2009, when it was publicly disclosed that the American International Group (AIG) insurance corporation was going to pay approximately $218 million (~$309 million in 2024) in bonus payments to employees of its financial services division. AIG is notable for having received taxpayer bailouts and in the fourth quarter of 2008 posted a loss of $61.7 billion (~$88 billion in 2024), the greatest ever for any corporation. A total loss of US$61.7 billion during the fourth quarter of 2008 is equivalent to an average loss of approximately US$670.7 million per day, US$27.9 million per hour, US$465,731 per minute, and US$7,762 per second (assuming a 92-day quarter).Beyond the $165 million in bonus payments that were announced in March 2009, the total bonuses for the financial unit is unknown; it was estimated that it could have reached $450 million and bonuses for the entire company could have reached $1.2 billion. The event sparked widespread outrage among both Democratic and Republican politicians, and from media commentators on all sides of the political spectrum. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate adopted bills that taxed these bonuses at a very high rate, but these bills were never signed into law and were opposed by the financial sector and President Barack Obama. In the end, some AIG employees, including 15 out of the 20 top executives of the company, paid back the bonuses they received to the company. In total, 50 million dollars in bonuses paid were returned to AIG. Following this announcement, House Majority leader Steny Hoyer concluded that the scandal did not warrant a legislative response.
Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede FCIB, (born 24 September 1966) is a Nigerian businessman, banker, investor and philanthropist. He was the former group managing director (GMD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Access Bank Plc. He is the founder and chairman of Coronation Group Limited and its affiliates, Coronation Asset Management Ltd and Trium Ltd. He founded Africa Initiative for Governance (AIG) in 2014. He is the co-chairman of the United Kingdom-Nigeria Capital Market Task Force and a board member of TCX Investment Management Company Netherlands. He is also chairman, the board of trustees of the Financial Market Dealers Association, and immediate past chairman of Coronation Insurance Plc (formerly Wapic). Aigboje is also a past President of The Nigerian Stock Exchange (now Nigerian Exchange Group) where he took over from Aliko Dangote, the founding Chairman of the FMDQ OTC Exchange, Chairman of EnterpriseNGR and co-founder of Tengen Family Office. In March 2024, he returned to Access Holdings as chairman after the death of Herbert Wigwe.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Madam C.J. Walker