BC Lightning
10-11-2008, 01:59 PM
Spent $500,000 of bailout money on a lavish retreat days after they received $37 billion to bail it out
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/10/report-aig-scra.html?csp=34
AIG is scrapping plans to hold a retreat for brokers later this month at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay in California, according to CNN.
"In light of new circumstances we reevaluated cost of operations...the need to repay the fed while still serving the needs of our policyholders," Joe Norton, a spokesman for the insurer, tells CNN in a statement.
Bloomberg News says the event that AIG just canceled was designed to "motivate and educate" the people who sell insurance to rich clients.
The insurer came under withering criticism this week after congressional investigators revealed that AIG had spent nearly $500,000 on a lavish retreat just days after the government agreed to spend billions to bail it out.
(The original deal involved $85 billion, but USA TODAY's Edward Iwata and Kevin McCoy are now reporting that the pricetag may grow by up to $37.8 billion.)
Yesterday, AIG issued a statement that said the earlier event had been "mischaracterized as an 'Executive Retreat."
"These agents were top business producers for the company, and of the more than 100 attendees, only 10 were employees of the AIG subsidiary who were there to represent their company," that statement says. "No AIG executives from headquarters attended. The meeting was planned months before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's loan to AIG."
The White House called it "despicable."
Update at 12:46 a.m. ET: Norton confirmed that the event has been canceled. "We're reevaluating all of our operations, obviously including this kind of function," he says.
Norton said he didn't know how much the company was saving with its decision to scrap the Half Moon Bay event.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/10/report-aig-scra.html?csp=34
AIG is scrapping plans to hold a retreat for brokers later this month at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay in California, according to CNN.
"In light of new circumstances we reevaluated cost of operations...the need to repay the fed while still serving the needs of our policyholders," Joe Norton, a spokesman for the insurer, tells CNN in a statement.
Bloomberg News says the event that AIG just canceled was designed to "motivate and educate" the people who sell insurance to rich clients.
The insurer came under withering criticism this week after congressional investigators revealed that AIG had spent nearly $500,000 on a lavish retreat just days after the government agreed to spend billions to bail it out.
(The original deal involved $85 billion, but USA TODAY's Edward Iwata and Kevin McCoy are now reporting that the pricetag may grow by up to $37.8 billion.)
Yesterday, AIG issued a statement that said the earlier event had been "mischaracterized as an 'Executive Retreat."
"These agents were top business producers for the company, and of the more than 100 attendees, only 10 were employees of the AIG subsidiary who were there to represent their company," that statement says. "No AIG executives from headquarters attended. The meeting was planned months before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's loan to AIG."
The White House called it "despicable."
Update at 12:46 a.m. ET: Norton confirmed that the event has been canceled. "We're reevaluating all of our operations, obviously including this kind of function," he says.
Norton said he didn't know how much the company was saving with its decision to scrap the Half Moon Bay event.