AIG pays back nearly $1 billion to Treasury

The Treasury Department continued its slow but steady exit from bailed out financial institutions Tuesday, announcing that the American International Group (AIG) had paid back nearly $1 billion of government funds.

The $972 million payment stems primarily from proceeds obtained when the insurance company sold a subsidiary to MetLife. The deal was completed one year ago, but the proceeds were escrowed until Tuesday. The Treasury now has about $50 billion invested in AIG, down from the $182 billion it pumped into it during the financial crisis to keep it afloat.

Of the $413 billion the Treasury doled out in bailout funds during the financial crisis, it has recouped $317 billion, or roughly 77 percent.

Treasury began its exit from AIG in the beginning of the year, after the insurance company restructured its obligations to pay off all remaining loans to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leaving the Treasury with 1.6 billion shares of the company's stock and $20.3 billion in equity interests. Since then, the Treasury has slowly reduced its holdings in the company, selling off 200 million shares for $5.8 billion and receiving payments from AIG totaling $12.4 billion.

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