New York-based American International Group Inc (AIG) said on Friday it lost US$8.87 billion in the fourth quarter as its general insurance business remained weak and the company ran up expenses from paying back government loans.
The troubled insurer also said in an annual regulatory filing that it may need additional support from the government.
However, AIG has included such warnings in past filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The fourth-quarter results were an improvement from the US$61.7 billion AIG lost in the year ago period, but they were worse than analysts expected. They also followed two straight profitable quarters.
The company reported a 2.2 percent drop in new premiums in its Chartis general insurance business, compared with a year earlier.
AIG attributed the slide in part to the weak economy. It also had lower sales of life insurance products, and it added US$2.3 billion to its reserves against losses in its commercial insurance business.
AIG also reported US$6.2 billion in expenses from repaying government loans.
It also said it lost US$65.51 per share in the last three months of last year. The compares to a loss of US$458.99 per share in the fourth quarter of 2008.
On average, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters forecast a quarterly loss of US$3.94 per share.
AIG was bailed out in September 2008 by the government as the financial crisis spiraled out of control.
The insurer has received aid packages with a total value of US$182.5 billion from the government. In return for that financial support, the government received an 80 percent stake in AIG.
Since receiving government bailout funds, AIG has completed 19 unit sales or asset transactions in an effort to repay government debt.
It reported on Friday that it continues to unwind its Financial Products Group, the unit blamed for AIG’s downfall.
“Clearly we will be a smaller and more focused company than in the past,” CEO Robert Benmosche said in a prerecorded message. “The only way we can repay taxpayers is to divest parts of this organization.”
Earlier this month, MetLife Inc confirmed that it is in talks with AIG to buy one of AIG’s insurance units. Media reports price the deal at as much as US$15 billion.
The two companies have been in discussions for months about a potential deal for AIG’s American Life Insurance Co, known as Alico.
Alico is an international life and health insurance business that operates in more than 50 countries.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS