AIG considers selling UK operations

Last Modified: 05 Oct 2008
Source: ITN

Troubled insurer American International Group is understood to be planning to sell some of its UK operations in a bid to repay its debt to the US Government, it has been reported.

The group, which is the world's largest insurer and employs 3,000 people in the UK, was saved from the brink of collapse by an $85 billion (£48 billion) loan from the US government last month.

AIG announced on Friday that it now planned to focus on its main property and casualty general insurance business in the US and its foreign general insurance businesses.

But other businesses are being put up for sale in a bid to repay its massive debt to the Government, beginning with three Japanese life insurance companies.

AIG, which sponsors Manchester United, did not specify which other assets had been earmarked for disposal, but at least some of its UK operations are thought to be on the list.

AIG has 11 UK offices, including ones in Croydon, Reading, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow, and operations that include a life and pensions business, an investment management division and an insurance operation that specialises in kidnap, ransom and extortion.

It operates under three main brands in the UK - AIG UK, AIG Life and AIG Direct.

However, it also sells insurance through high street names such as Argos and Boots, while the firm underwrites product warrantees for John Lewis department stores.

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