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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
NEW YORK (Reuters)—Bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc. earned $11.2 billion in the fourth quarter on asset sales, but charges to expand its reserves for old asbestos claims pushed its underlying operations into another loss.
AIG's global property/casualty insurance business, Chartis Inc., lost $4 billion in the quarter on those reserve charges, which had been previously announced.
Business written in the quarter only rose because of the effects of an acquisition in Japan. Excluding that, business was down in a generally weak market.
The company's smaller U.S. life insurance business, SunAmerica, fared much better. Brokers and advisers who once shied away from AIG products amid its survival woes have started selling them again, and SunAmerica saw a surge in life insurance and variable annuity sales.
AIG also took another hit in the quarter from its aircraft leasing business, International Lease Finance Corp. Industry changes made some of the planes in its fleet less valuable, forcing AIG to take a writedown. Executives have said before they expect to sell ILFC in coming years.
In an annual report filed with securities regulators Thursday afternoon, AIG said it planned "one or more" sales of its common stock this year. Sources familiar with the situation have forecast a joint Treasury-AIG stock sale of at least $15 billion in March or May.
AIG said it earned $11.18 billion, or $16.60 per share in the fourth quarter, compared with a year-earlier loss of $8.87 billion, or $65.51 per share.
Stripping out the gains from asset sales, AIG said it lost $2.21 billion on an operating basis, worse than the $1.34 billion it lost on the same basis a year earlier.
AIG shares rose 1.6% to $41.06 in after-hours trading, following its earnings report and the filing. At that level, the U.S. government stands to make a profit of more than $18 billion on its 92 percent stake in what had once been the world's largest insurer.