AIG Paid Out the Most Bailout Money to Goldman Sachs
March 16th, 2009Imagine my shock.
Via: Bloomberg:
American International Group Inc., under pressure to reveal how it spent taxpayer funds since its September bailout, said $105 billion flowed to U.S. states and banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Societe Generale SA and Deutsche Bank AG.
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Goldman Sachs led beneficiaries, with $12.9 billion, followed by SocGen, France’s No. 3 bank, with $11.9 billion, and Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest lender, with $11.8 billion. New York-based AIG and the Fed had previously refused to reveal the counterparties, saying the contracts were confidential and that the information could damage AIG’s business prospects.
“I was happy to see that AIG finally handed over the counterparty information we’ve been requesting for months,” said Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. “However, I am deeply concerned that Goldman Sachs received so much money from AIG considering the relationships between the two companies. We will certainly be investigating this further to ensure that this is merely a coincidence.”
Henry Paulson, former CEO of New York-based Goldman Sachs, made the decision to save AIG while he was Treasury Secretary. He appointed AIG CEO Edward Liddy, formerly CEO of Allstate Corp., whom he knew from the executive’s service on the board of Goldman Sachs.
