AIG Inc has dropped plans to sell two Japanese subsidiaries, according to a published report, deciding the company will derive more value from holding on to them.
The struggling insurer announced a year ago it would sell three of its Japanese life insurance businesses to help pay off an US$85 billion government loan that helped keep it from collapsing as the credit crisis deepened.
But with the company’s financial picture improving and few viable buyers coming forward, AIG says it will hold on to AIG Star Life Insurance Co and AIG Edison Life Insurance Co, according to a report posted on the Wall Street Journal’s Web site on Saturday.
AIG is still considering a sale or a spinoff of a third subsidiary, Alico Japan.
“I have come to believe that we can obtain the greatest value for AIG Star and AIG Edison by continuing to operate and grow these companies as part of AIG,” CEO Robert Benmosche told the Journal.
The company signaled in August that it would not rush into sales, revealing in a securities filing that it intends to “maximize the value of its businesses over a longer time frame.”
That came as AIG was reporting its first quarterly profit since 2007.
Separately, the New York Times reported that an AIG policyholder in California has asked a judge for an injunction that would bar the company from moving assets there out of the state, potentially disrupting AIG investments elsewhere.
The policyholder, Linda Harris, is also a financial planner who had recommended AIG annuities to clients before the company’s financial woes came to light last year, the Times reported.
In a filing on Friday in California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, Harris said AIG “continues to engage in unlawful, fraudulent and unfair business practices.”
The Times reported that AIG spokesman Mark Herr said, “We believe that there is no merit to the motion, and we will continue to defend ourselves against these spurious assertions.”
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2