AIG Investments executives assured clients and investment consultants today that the money management arm of battered insurance giant American International Group Inc. remains focused on managing money.
In a letter to consultants, Win J. Neuger, chairman and CEO of AIG Investments, said the two-year, $85 billion credit facility the parent company secured from the Fed will allow AIG Investments to focus on delivering long-term results, although — in a possible nod to concerns about organizational stability — he added, “I am personally making employee retention my top priority.”
Investment bankers and private equity investors said today there have been no official signs that AIG Investments is being shopped to potential buyers. With government intervention averting a fire-sale scenario, “time is their friend,” noted Eric Weber, a principal and COO of investment bank Freeman & Co.
Still, with clients potentially unnerved by the prospects of an eventual sale, AIG held a conference call with its private equity and hedge funds clients today, and is reaching out to other clients as well, according to one source who declined to be named.
“AIG continues the strategic review of its businesses, and no decisions have been made,” AIG spokeswoman Braden Bledsoe said in a statement. She declined to comment specifically on whether asset management clients had been given any indication that AIG Investments would be sold. Mr. Neuger wasn’t immediately available for comment.
