WGR Werk, Geldzaken, Recht en de Beurs
Hier kun je alles kwijt over sollicitaties, werksituaties, belastingen, (handelen op) de beurs, hypotheken, beleggingen en salarissen, arbeidscontracten of geschillen met je (huis)baas. Alles over werk, geldzaken en recht dus.
ff stof eraf vegen.... en kick.
Dat het herstructureren van AIG moeizaam ging was al bekend.... maar onder de motorkap gaan er volgens mij meer dingen fout.
De nieuwsstroom mbt tot AIG is weer aan het stijgen.... dat viel me al een paar weken op.quote:AIG may have zero equity value: Citigroup analyst
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
American International Group Inc. shares continued their free fall Thursday after a Citigroup analyst said there is a high probability that the insurer's equity is zero.
Shares dropped $2.83, or 20 percent, to $10.48 in late morning trading.
Last week, shares of the New York-based insurance giant plummeted after a 1-for-20 reverse stock split was approved at the company's annual shareholders meeting on June 30. Shares of AIG closed at $1.16 that day, which is equivalent to $23.20 assuming the reverse split.
In a note to clients Thursday, Citi Investment Research analyst Joshua Shanker said the continued risk of more credit default swap losses and its management's eagerness to sell off businesses at a low value jeopardizes AIG's equity position.
"Such collateral calls could also pressure rating agencies to lower their credit ratings for the company, leading to a similar cycle to the one that the company experienced prior to the massive government intervention in the third quarter," Shanker wrote.
He cut his price target on AIG stock to $14 from the split-adjusted target price of $36. Shanker maintained his "hold" rating.
Once the world's largest insurer, AIG nearly collapsed last year because of losses from credit default swaps. Last week, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing last week that it could face additional losses on those swaps remaining on its books.
Credit default swaps are essentially insurance contracts protecting an investor against default on an underlying investment, such as mortgage-backed securities. Underwriting of the risky contacts were at the heart of AIG's near collapse last fall when it took an initial $85 billion bailout from the government to remain in business.
AIG has since received additional loan packages from the government, which now total $182.5 billion. The government has received an 80 percent stake in the insurer as part of the loan package.
The company is in the process of shedding assets and spinning off some of its subsidiaries in an effort to repay the government and return to profitability.
On Thursday, AIG was said to be discussing a possible deal to sell all or part of one of its foreign life insurance units to MetLife Inc., according to published reports.
Both AIG and MetLife declined to comment on the report.
"While AIG may be able to repay U.S. investment and some debt with core asset sales, the remaining businesses may be those that generate lower return on equity, handicapped by a high debt burden," Shanker wrote.
Dat het herstructureren van AIG moeizaam ging was al bekend.... maar onder de motorkap gaan er volgens mij meer dingen fout.
After Rescue, New Weakness Seen at A.I.G.
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By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: July 30, 2009
The dozens of insurance companies that make up the American International Group show signs of considerable weakness even after their corporate parent got the biggest bailout in history, a review of state regulatory filings shows.
Over time, the weaknesses could mean trouble for A.I.G.’s policyholders, and they raise difficult questions for regulators, who normally step in when an insurer gets into trouble. State commissioners are supposed to keep insurers from writing new policies if there is any doubt that they can cover their claims. But in A.I.G.’s case, regulators are eager for the insurers to keep writing new business, because they see it as the best hope of paying back taxpayers.
In the months since A.I.G. received its $182 billion rescue from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, state insurance regulators have said repeatedly that its core insurance operations were sound — that the financial disaster was caused primarily by a small unit that dealt in exotic derivatives.
But state regulatory filings offer a different picture. They show that A.I.G.’s individual insurance companies have been doing an unusual volume of business with each other for many years — investing in each other’s stocks; borrowing from each other’s investment portfolios; and guaranteeing each other’s insurance policies, even when they have lacked the means to make good. Insurance examiners working for the states have occasionally flagged these activities, to little effect.
More ominously, many of A.I.G.’s insurance companies have reduced their own exposure by sending their risks to other companies, often under the same A.I.G. umbrella.
Echoing state regulators’ statements, the company said the interdependency of its businesses posed no problem and strongly disputed that any units had obligations they could not pay.
“There is absolutely no concern about the capital in these companies,” said Rob Schimek, the chief financial officer of A.I.G.’s property and casualty insurance business. The company authorized him to speak about these issues.
Nothing is wrong with spreading risks to other companies, a practice known as reinsurance, when it is carried out with unrelated, solvent companies. It can also be acceptable in small amounts between related companies. But A.I.G.’s companies have reinsured each other to such a large extent, experts say, that now billions of dollars worth of risks may have ended up at related companies that lack the means to cover them.
“An organization like this one relies on constant, ever-growing premium volume, so it can cover and pay for the deficits,” said W. O. Myrick, a retired chief insurance examiner for Louisiana.
If A.I.G.’s incoming premiums shrink, he warned, “the whole thing’s going to collapse in on itself.”
Mr. Myrick has not fully examined all the A.I.G. subsidiaries but said his own recent review of many state filings raised serious concerns, particularly about the use of reinsurance to “bounce things around inside the holding company group.”
“That is a method used by holding companies to falsify the liabilities,” he said.
A.I.G.’s premiums have, in fact, been declining in important lines. Its ratings have fallen, and customers tend to steer clear of lower-rated insurers. To woo them back, A.I.G. has in some cases lowered its prices, competitors say. A.I.G. executives insist they would rather lose a customer than drive down prices dangerously.
A.I.G. has also pledged a share of its life insurance premiums to the Fed, to pay back about $8 billion. Details have not been provided, but consumer advocates say it is not clear how the life companies will pay future claims if their premiums are diverted.
“Eventually, there’s going to be a battle between the policyholders and the feds,” said Thomas D. Gober, a former insurance examiner who now has his own forensic accounting firm that specializes in insurance fraud. “The Fed is going to say, ‘We want our money back,’ but the law says, ‘Policyholders come first.’ It’s going to be ugly.”
Mr. Gober is a consultant for a lawsuit on behalf of A.I.G. policyholders, filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles. The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring all A.I.G. subsidiaries doing business in California to put enough money to cover their obligations into a secure account controlled by the state treasurer.
The goal is to keep money from being moved out of California or used to finance A.I.G.’s other activities, said Maria C. Severson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The lawsuit also seeks to bar A.I.G. companies from soliciting new business without full disclosure of their financial condition.
The condition of A.I.G.’s individual companies is hard to see in the parent company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those filings simply tally all the individual subsidiaries’ financial information.
The companies’ weaknesses emerge in their filings with state insurance regulators — particularly when several are reviewed together. But that appears not to happen often, because there are so many. A.I.G. has more than 4,000 units in more than 100 countries.
Responsibility for A.I.G.’s 71 American insurance companies is spread among 19 state insurance commissions, which do not conduct examinations simultaneously.
As a result, Mr. Myrick said, a conglomerate like A.I.G. “can keep moving assets around to clean up one company” at a time, when examiners were looking. He said that it would take a coordinated, multistate examination of all the insurance companies to catch this.
Mr. Schimek, speaking for the insurance companies, said that in 2005, a team of examiners had at least considered A.I.G.’s property and casualty businesses as a group.
“It was a thorough examination,” he said. “I have absolutely no concern about the integrity of the financial information that’s been filed under my watch.”
State regulators confirmed that they believed the A.I.G. subsidiaries under their authority were solvent. Mike Moriarty, deputy insurance superintendent for New York State, said that while A.I.G. subsidiaries did not report all their reinsured obligations on their balances sheets, state regulators could “follow the trail of liabilities” and make sure they did not get lost in the holding company.
Obligations “can’t be hidden from state insurance regulators,” Mr. Moriarty said.
One A.I.G. subsidiary, the National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, shows what can happen by heavily relying on affiliates. Its most recent regulatory filing in Pennsylvania said it had more than enough money to pay its obligations.
But at the end of 2008, more than a third of National Union’s portfolio was invested in the stock of other A.I.G. companies, which are not publicly traded. National Union might not be able to sell all of these shares, and it is not clear what it could get for them. Many states bar insurers from investing that heavily in related companies.
Meanwhile, National Union has $42.1 billion in obligations looming off its balance sheet. These have been transferred to 56 other A.I.G. companies, through reinsurance. National Union will have to pay any of these claims and then collect from its relatives.
But it is not clear that the affiliates could pay promptly. National Union’s biggest reinsurance partner is American Home Assurance, an A.I.G. subsidiary that has taken $23.1 billion of obligations off National Union’s hands. In a New York filing, American Home reports total assets of $26.3 billion, but part of that consists of assets that cannot be used to pay claims, like furniture. It too includes a number of investments in other A.I.G. companies.
In addition, American Home has “unconditionally” guaranteed the obligations of 16 other A.I.G. subsidiaries, bringing the total it might have to pay to $140.6 billion.
Normally, when an insurance company weakens, regulators in its home state will first measure its capital. They may demand a weak company rebuild its capital, and if it fails, eventually bar it from selling new policies.
Like New York regulators, Pennsylvania regulators say they do not see a problem. “The insurance companies remain strong and are probably the most valuable assets within the A.I.G. structure,” said Joel Ario, Pennsylvania’s insurance commissioner. “To the best we know it, we think the companies are sound.”
But policyholder advocates said they feared state regulators were deferring to the wishes of the Fed and Treasury, to use the insurance operations to pay back the taxpayers.
“The insurance commissioners, for whatever reason, are letting them do this,” Mr. Myrick said. “I’d be jumping out of my shoes.”
=============================================================
Check this out.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124926050407300487.html
=============================================================
After $182 billion taxpayer rescue, is AIG on the verge of collapse?
Peter CohanPeter Cohan RSS Feed
You may remember American International Group (AIG). The U.S. government gave it $182 billion of taxpayer money last fall in exchange for a 78 percent stake. Of that money, $165 million went for bonuses to a handful of people in its Financial Products Group (FPG), which sold Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) on which AIG lacked the capital to make good. And $200 million more is slated for those good folks in 2009.
Another $12.9 billion of our taxpayer money went to Goldman Sachs Group (GS) so AIG could pay Goldman 100 cents on the dollar for its CDSs. Hank Paulson wanted to keep the names of Goldman and the other recipients secret -- since so many of them were foreign banks, but the information leaked out in March 2009 after Paulson left office.
Now, thanks to some solid reporting in The New York Times, it looks like the rot at AIG is not limited to FPG. While AIG officials have claimed that its problems were isolated to FPG, the reality is that AIG seems to have been running something akin to a shell game of massive proportions. Its shell game version took the form of selling insurance and assigning the resultant risks among its 71 different North American insurance companies.
Thanks to AIG's regulatory arbitrage -- taking advantage of the fact that its 19 state insurance regulators never conduct examinations at the same time -- AIG may have been able to shift assets among the companies to fool state regulators. If one its companies did not have enough money set aside as reserves against future claims, AIG could move assets to that reserve-deficient company right before the state insurance examiner moved in. And once that examiner was gone, AIG could in theory shift the extra cash to the next reserves-deficient company.
Want an example? Consider AIG affiliate National Union (NU). AIG indicated to Pennsylvania state insurance investigators that it had $33.7 billion in assets at the end of 2008 -- more than enough to protect against $21.9 billion in liabilities. But what the Pennsylvania regulators did not see is that $10.9 billion worth of NU's assets were investments in other AIG affiliates, which are not publicly traded and whose value is hard to measure. Subtract that and you have only $22.8 billion in assets.
But wait -- there's more. NU had $42 billion more in liabilities that the Pennsylvania regulators missed. How so? NU had obligations to pay claims of other AIG insurance affiliates -- the biggest of which was $23.1 billion that it owed AIG affiliate American Home (AH). NU owed another $19 billion to several other AIG afiiliates.
Meanwhile, AH had crushing obligations of its own. While the New York state regulators thought it had $26.3 billion in assets to a mere $19.9 billion in liabilities, the reality was far more dire. How so? AH was on the hook for an additional $120.7 billion in guarantees to 16 other AIG affiliates. Thus AH's liabilities really exceeded its assets by $114 billion.
To summarize, AIG's core insurance companies seem to be like a shell game which AIG was able to continue operating because it was able to keep the cash moving from the affiliate that one state regulator had just examined to the one that another state regulator was about to examine.
Unfortunately, it would not surprise me if this was happening and continues to happen at all big U.S. insurance companies. Moreover, I would be shocked if former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg -- who has heaped scorn on his successors -- was unaware of this practice.
Is it too early to write off that $182 billion?
===============================================
Hmmmzzzz........ krijgen we nog vuurwerk of wat ?!
Citigroup heeft tenminste zijn huiswerk goed gedaan en zegt dat ze al onder water zitten (AIG may have zero equity value):
Article Tools Sponsored By
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: July 30, 2009
The dozens of insurance companies that make up the American International Group show signs of considerable weakness even after their corporate parent got the biggest bailout in history, a review of state regulatory filings shows.
Over time, the weaknesses could mean trouble for A.I.G.’s policyholders, and they raise difficult questions for regulators, who normally step in when an insurer gets into trouble. State commissioners are supposed to keep insurers from writing new policies if there is any doubt that they can cover their claims. But in A.I.G.’s case, regulators are eager for the insurers to keep writing new business, because they see it as the best hope of paying back taxpayers.
In the months since A.I.G. received its $182 billion rescue from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, state insurance regulators have said repeatedly that its core insurance operations were sound — that the financial disaster was caused primarily by a small unit that dealt in exotic derivatives.
But state regulatory filings offer a different picture. They show that A.I.G.’s individual insurance companies have been doing an unusual volume of business with each other for many years — investing in each other’s stocks; borrowing from each other’s investment portfolios; and guaranteeing each other’s insurance policies, even when they have lacked the means to make good. Insurance examiners working for the states have occasionally flagged these activities, to little effect.
More ominously, many of A.I.G.’s insurance companies have reduced their own exposure by sending their risks to other companies, often under the same A.I.G. umbrella.
Echoing state regulators’ statements, the company said the interdependency of its businesses posed no problem and strongly disputed that any units had obligations they could not pay.
“There is absolutely no concern about the capital in these companies,” said Rob Schimek, the chief financial officer of A.I.G.’s property and casualty insurance business. The company authorized him to speak about these issues.
Nothing is wrong with spreading risks to other companies, a practice known as reinsurance, when it is carried out with unrelated, solvent companies. It can also be acceptable in small amounts between related companies. But A.I.G.’s companies have reinsured each other to such a large extent, experts say, that now billions of dollars worth of risks may have ended up at related companies that lack the means to cover them.
“An organization like this one relies on constant, ever-growing premium volume, so it can cover and pay for the deficits,” said W. O. Myrick, a retired chief insurance examiner for Louisiana.
If A.I.G.’s incoming premiums shrink, he warned, “the whole thing’s going to collapse in on itself.”
Mr. Myrick has not fully examined all the A.I.G. subsidiaries but said his own recent review of many state filings raised serious concerns, particularly about the use of reinsurance to “bounce things around inside the holding company group.”
“That is a method used by holding companies to falsify the liabilities,” he said.
A.I.G.’s premiums have, in fact, been declining in important lines. Its ratings have fallen, and customers tend to steer clear of lower-rated insurers. To woo them back, A.I.G. has in some cases lowered its prices, competitors say. A.I.G. executives insist they would rather lose a customer than drive down prices dangerously.
A.I.G. has also pledged a share of its life insurance premiums to the Fed, to pay back about $8 billion. Details have not been provided, but consumer advocates say it is not clear how the life companies will pay future claims if their premiums are diverted.
“Eventually, there’s going to be a battle between the policyholders and the feds,” said Thomas D. Gober, a former insurance examiner who now has his own forensic accounting firm that specializes in insurance fraud. “The Fed is going to say, ‘We want our money back,’ but the law says, ‘Policyholders come first.’ It’s going to be ugly.”
Mr. Gober is a consultant for a lawsuit on behalf of A.I.G. policyholders, filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles. The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring all A.I.G. subsidiaries doing business in California to put enough money to cover their obligations into a secure account controlled by the state treasurer.
The goal is to keep money from being moved out of California or used to finance A.I.G.’s other activities, said Maria C. Severson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The lawsuit also seeks to bar A.I.G. companies from soliciting new business without full disclosure of their financial condition.
The condition of A.I.G.’s individual companies is hard to see in the parent company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those filings simply tally all the individual subsidiaries’ financial information.
The companies’ weaknesses emerge in their filings with state insurance regulators — particularly when several are reviewed together. But that appears not to happen often, because there are so many. A.I.G. has more than 4,000 units in more than 100 countries.
Responsibility for A.I.G.’s 71 American insurance companies is spread among 19 state insurance commissions, which do not conduct examinations simultaneously.
As a result, Mr. Myrick said, a conglomerate like A.I.G. “can keep moving assets around to clean up one company” at a time, when examiners were looking. He said that it would take a coordinated, multistate examination of all the insurance companies to catch this.
Mr. Schimek, speaking for the insurance companies, said that in 2005, a team of examiners had at least considered A.I.G.’s property and casualty businesses as a group.
“It was a thorough examination,” he said. “I have absolutely no concern about the integrity of the financial information that’s been filed under my watch.”
State regulators confirmed that they believed the A.I.G. subsidiaries under their authority were solvent. Mike Moriarty, deputy insurance superintendent for New York State, said that while A.I.G. subsidiaries did not report all their reinsured obligations on their balances sheets, state regulators could “follow the trail of liabilities” and make sure they did not get lost in the holding company.
Obligations “can’t be hidden from state insurance regulators,” Mr. Moriarty said.
One A.I.G. subsidiary, the National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, shows what can happen by heavily relying on affiliates. Its most recent regulatory filing in Pennsylvania said it had more than enough money to pay its obligations.
But at the end of 2008, more than a third of National Union’s portfolio was invested in the stock of other A.I.G. companies, which are not publicly traded. National Union might not be able to sell all of these shares, and it is not clear what it could get for them. Many states bar insurers from investing that heavily in related companies.
Meanwhile, National Union has $42.1 billion in obligations looming off its balance sheet. These have been transferred to 56 other A.I.G. companies, through reinsurance. National Union will have to pay any of these claims and then collect from its relatives.
But it is not clear that the affiliates could pay promptly. National Union’s biggest reinsurance partner is American Home Assurance, an A.I.G. subsidiary that has taken $23.1 billion of obligations off National Union’s hands. In a New York filing, American Home reports total assets of $26.3 billion, but part of that consists of assets that cannot be used to pay claims, like furniture. It too includes a number of investments in other A.I.G. companies.
In addition, American Home has “unconditionally” guaranteed the obligations of 16 other A.I.G. subsidiaries, bringing the total it might have to pay to $140.6 billion.
Normally, when an insurance company weakens, regulators in its home state will first measure its capital. They may demand a weak company rebuild its capital, and if it fails, eventually bar it from selling new policies.
Like New York regulators, Pennsylvania regulators say they do not see a problem. “The insurance companies remain strong and are probably the most valuable assets within the A.I.G. structure,” said Joel Ario, Pennsylvania’s insurance commissioner. “To the best we know it, we think the companies are sound.”
But policyholder advocates said they feared state regulators were deferring to the wishes of the Fed and Treasury, to use the insurance operations to pay back the taxpayers.
“The insurance commissioners, for whatever reason, are letting them do this,” Mr. Myrick said. “I’d be jumping out of my shoes.”
=============================================================
Check this out.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124926050407300487.html
=============================================================
After $182 billion taxpayer rescue, is AIG on the verge of collapse?
Peter CohanPeter Cohan RSS Feed
You may remember American International Group (AIG). The U.S. government gave it $182 billion of taxpayer money last fall in exchange for a 78 percent stake. Of that money, $165 million went for bonuses to a handful of people in its Financial Products Group (FPG), which sold Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) on which AIG lacked the capital to make good. And $200 million more is slated for those good folks in 2009.
Another $12.9 billion of our taxpayer money went to Goldman Sachs Group (GS) so AIG could pay Goldman 100 cents on the dollar for its CDSs. Hank Paulson wanted to keep the names of Goldman and the other recipients secret -- since so many of them were foreign banks, but the information leaked out in March 2009 after Paulson left office.
Now, thanks to some solid reporting in The New York Times, it looks like the rot at AIG is not limited to FPG. While AIG officials have claimed that its problems were isolated to FPG, the reality is that AIG seems to have been running something akin to a shell game of massive proportions. Its shell game version took the form of selling insurance and assigning the resultant risks among its 71 different North American insurance companies.
Thanks to AIG's regulatory arbitrage -- taking advantage of the fact that its 19 state insurance regulators never conduct examinations at the same time -- AIG may have been able to shift assets among the companies to fool state regulators. If one its companies did not have enough money set aside as reserves against future claims, AIG could move assets to that reserve-deficient company right before the state insurance examiner moved in. And once that examiner was gone, AIG could in theory shift the extra cash to the next reserves-deficient company.
Want an example? Consider AIG affiliate National Union (NU). AIG indicated to Pennsylvania state insurance investigators that it had $33.7 billion in assets at the end of 2008 -- more than enough to protect against $21.9 billion in liabilities. But what the Pennsylvania regulators did not see is that $10.9 billion worth of NU's assets were investments in other AIG affiliates, which are not publicly traded and whose value is hard to measure. Subtract that and you have only $22.8 billion in assets.
But wait -- there's more. NU had $42 billion more in liabilities that the Pennsylvania regulators missed. How so? NU had obligations to pay claims of other AIG insurance affiliates -- the biggest of which was $23.1 billion that it owed AIG affiliate American Home (AH). NU owed another $19 billion to several other AIG afiiliates.
Meanwhile, AH had crushing obligations of its own. While the New York state regulators thought it had $26.3 billion in assets to a mere $19.9 billion in liabilities, the reality was far more dire. How so? AH was on the hook for an additional $120.7 billion in guarantees to 16 other AIG affiliates. Thus AH's liabilities really exceeded its assets by $114 billion.
To summarize, AIG's core insurance companies seem to be like a shell game which AIG was able to continue operating because it was able to keep the cash moving from the affiliate that one state regulator had just examined to the one that another state regulator was about to examine.
Unfortunately, it would not surprise me if this was happening and continues to happen at all big U.S. insurance companies. Moreover, I would be shocked if former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg -- who has heaped scorn on his successors -- was unaware of this practice.
Is it too early to write off that $182 billion?
===============================================
Hmmmzzzz........ krijgen we nog vuurwerk of wat ?!
Citigroup heeft tenminste zijn huiswerk goed gedaan en zegt dat ze al onder water zitten (AIG may have zero equity value):
lol bedankt voor uitlichten belangrijke stukken, geen tijd om hem nu helemaal te lezen, nieuw rondje afschrijving en bailouts begonnen 
National Suicide: How Washington is Destroying the American Dream
Dekkingen voor verplichtingen met betrekking tot claims van verzekerden zouden dus deels worden rondgepompt tussen de 4000 ( 
) AIG-dochters. Maar waarin kijk je als toezichthouder dan niet verder terug in de geschiedenis terug? Het eerste wat ik doe bij het lezen van een jaar/kwartaal/maand-rekening is het lezen van de toelichting op de posten die zijn opgenomen in de rekening, vervolgens kijk ik naar het verloop van de omvang van de posten in het verleden, dat is belangrijk omdat relatieve ontwikkeling veel belangrijker is dan absolute cijfers. Wie terug kijkt in de rekeningen van de dochters zou dus een grote fluctuatie in assets moeten kunnen vinden.
Ik hoop dat het kaartenhuis wederom in elkaar zakt, politici mogen niet het idee krijgen dat zij daadwerkelijk effectief in kunnen grijpen in de economie om deze te verbeteren.
[ Bericht 16% gewijzigd door Bolkesteijn op 03-08-2009 11:54:38 ]
) AIG-dochters. Maar waarin kijk je als toezichthouder dan niet verder terug in de geschiedenis terug? Het eerste wat ik doe bij het lezen van een jaar/kwartaal/maand-rekening is het lezen van de toelichting op de posten die zijn opgenomen in de rekening, vervolgens kijk ik naar het verloop van de omvang van de posten in het verleden, dat is belangrijk omdat relatieve ontwikkeling veel belangrijker is dan absolute cijfers. Wie terug kijkt in de rekeningen van de dochters zou dus een grote fluctuatie in assets moeten kunnen vinden.Ik hoop dat het kaartenhuis wederom in elkaar zakt, politici mogen niet het idee krijgen dat zij daadwerkelijk effectief in kunnen grijpen in de economie om deze te verbeteren.
quote:Op zaterdag 4 april 2009 01:18 schreef henkway het volgende:
Ja als je de markt helemaal vrijlaat, dan krijg je dit als resultaat vrees ik.
[ Bericht 16% gewijzigd door Bolkesteijn op 03-08-2009 11:54:38 ]
The Battle of the Zombies continues
Quelle: http://www.reuters.com/ar(...)dUSTRE57B5LC20090812quote:Lehman sues AIG for $9 million in CDS payments
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LEHMQ.PK) is suing American International Group (AIG.N) for $9 million in payments the bank says it is owed from credit default swap protection it bought from the insurer on companies including General Motors and Washington Mutual.
In a suit filed with a New York bankruptcy court last week, Lehman alleges that AIG is using the bank's failure as an excuse not to make payments, and that this violates U.S. bankruptcy law.
AIG had the option to terminate the CDSs, which used to insure against a borrower defaulting on its debt, when Lehman failed in September 2008, Lehman said in the filing.
The company failed to do so in order to avoid paying Lehman the $50 million it would have been owed at the time, Lehman said. The insurer appears to be refusing to meet its obligations until the contracts mature or the value of the contracts swings in AIG's favor, the bank said.
A spokesperson for AIG was not immediately available to comment.
Lehman bought protection from AIG on AbitibiBowater (ABWTQ.PK), Washington Mutual (WAMUQ.PK) and General Motors Corp GM.UL, all of which have filed for bankruptcy. Payments on another contract, Station Casinos STN.UL, were triggered when the casino operator failed to make an interest payment on its debt.
Lehman said it has spent $5 million to purchase debt needed to settle the contracts with AIG and is exposed to the risk that the debt will deteriorate in value.
When a borrower defaults on debt, the seller of protection typically pays the buyer the full value of the CDS, in return for the defaulted bonds backing the contract.
AIG bought protection from Lehman on three firms, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Washington Mutual, Lehman said. The insurer has voided its right to collect on these contracts, however, because it failed to give notice to Lehman to settle the contracts within the 30-day deadline, Lehman said.
Payments on Fannie Mae (FNM.N) and Freddie Mac's (FRE.N) CDSs were triggered when the U.S. government put the companies into conservatorship last year.
The case is scheduled to be heard in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on October 14.
(Reporting by Karen Brettell; Editing by Dan Grebler)
Ik in een aantal worden omschreven: Ondernemend | Moedig | Stout | Lief | Positief | Intuïtief | Communicatief | Humor | Creatief | Spontaan | Open | Sociaal | Vrolijk | Organisator | Pro-actief | Meedenkend | Levensgenieter | Spiritueel
Precies wat Amerika op dit moment nodig heeft: failliete Amerikaanse bedrijven die elkaar gaan sue-en! Wat nou "saneren en wederopbouwen"? Wat nou "de industriële productie op peil brengen"? We pompen gewoon nog een paar miljoen in advocaten en een eeuwigdurend proces over een paar virtuele pepernoten, da's natuurlijk veel belangrijker! 
LOLquote:Thanks to AIG's regulatory arbitrage -- taking advantage of the fact that its 19 state insurance regulators never conduct examinations at the same time -- AIG may have been able to shift assets among the companies to fool state regulators. If one its companies did not have enough money set aside as reserves against future claims, AIG could move assets to that reserve-deficient company right before the state insurance examiner moved in. And once that examiner was gone, AIG could in theory shift the extra cash to the next reserves-deficient company.
Want an example? Consider AIG affiliate National Union (NU). AIG indicated to Pennsylvania state insurance investigators that it had $33.7 billion in assets at the end of 2008 -- more than enough to protect against $21.9 billion in liabilities. But what the Pennsylvania regulators did not see is that $10.9 billion worth of NU's assets were investments in other AIG affiliates, which are not publicly traded and whose value is hard to measure. Subtract that and you have only $22.8 billion in assets.
Ja regulators, je krijgt zo schijnzekerheid.
en waarom zijn ze ten onder gegaan dan, in het kortquote:Op zaterdag 1 november 2008 14:00 schreef SeLang het volgende:
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Dat boek heb ik ook in de kast staan, naast "Het Drama Ahold" van Jeroen Smit
Hopelijk levert de huidige crisis mij evenveel geld op (of meer)
1/10 Van de rappers dankt zijn bestaan in Amerika aan de Nederlanders die zijn voorouders met een cruiseschip uit hun hongerige landen ophaalde om te werken op prachtige plantages.
"Oorlog is de overtreffende trap van concurrentie."
"Oorlog is de overtreffende trap van concurrentie."
te veel ambitie, te weinig gezond verstand. de bekende oogkleppen en vergalloperen. Het niet op waarde willen schatten van de risico's van de strategie en het willen toegeven en verbeteren van fouten.quote:Op vrijdag 14 augustus 2009 16:42 schreef icecreamfarmer_NL het volgende:
[..]
en waarom zijn ze ten onder gegaan dan, in het kort
Nu 'de zwarte zwaan' aan het lezen. Beetje schokkend, de schrijver (econoom) beweert dat niemand crisissen zoals deze (en bijv. aanslagen (9-11) kan voorspellen en dat je er dus eigenlijk niks tegen kan doen.. sorry, maar in mijn beroep kijken we alleen maar naar dit soort (remote) gebeurtenissen.
Zijn er bij de banken nou geen mensen die daar ook naar kijken? of is het gewoon te slecht voor je carriere om daar over na te denken? vermoed het laatste.
Two Republican lawmakers seek audit of AIG trust
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Two key Republican lawmakers on Monday said they are seeking an audit of the trust that manages the government's controlling stake in struggling American International Group Inc.
"While the trustees have the discretion to exercise full control over AIG, the trustees cannot be fired if their decisions conflict with the preferences of government officials," said House Oversight Committee ranking member Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., the House Financial Services ranking member. "This raises a troubling and urgent question: Who can the American taxpayers hold accountable if the trustees make a decision that is not in their best interest?"
Issa and Bachus sent letters to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Neil Barofsky, the congressionally appointed inspector general for the government's $700 billion bailout program, seeking to have either the agency or the IG audit the AIG Trust.
AIG has received more than $180 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout dollars to keep it afloat, in part, because of concern by Treasury officials that the supersized insurance corporation's collapse would have caused too much collateral damage to the financial markets.
The congressional request comes as AIG, its former chief executive, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, and its former chief financial officer, Howard Smith, agreed Monday on terms for binding arbitration for legal disputes. The arbitration will begin Oct. 15 and conclude by March 31. After a four-year investigation, Greenberg agreed earlier this month to pay $15 million to settle a suit with the Securities and Exchange Commission based on the agency's accusations that he fraudulently overstated AIG's financial position.
Last fall, AIG was close to insolvency because it employed complex financial instruments, known as credit default swaps, to insure illiquid mortgage securities without allocating sufficient reserve funds in case of default. AIG received billions in federal funds that it used to pay off counterparties at financial institutions in the United States and Europe, including Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America Corp. BAC, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM and Deutsche Bank AG / . AIG is in the process of selling of units to pay off the government investment.
In exchange, the administration has received an 80% stake in the company, and it set up a trust with independent trustees to manage the government's ownership stake.
Representatives for the TARP inspector general's office and Treasury did not return requests for comment.
The two lawmakers said they were concerned that the Treasury could set up a similar trust, raising the same concerns, to control the government's $50 billion stake in Citigroup Inc. through the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program.
"If the AIG Trust is going to be the model for the delegation of the management of the public's shares in Citigroup and other bailed-out companies, the American people have a right to know how these trusts are going to be designed, how they will operate and how the trustees can be held accountable," Issa and Bachus wrote.
AIG also has come under criticism for paying out $450 million in bonuses worldwide to a wide variety of employees, including traders of credit default swaps -- considered central to the financial crisis.
In January, the New York Federal Reserve appointed three trustees to oversee AIG as part of its effort to avoid conflicts with the regional central bank office's supervisory and monetary-policy functions and goals. The trustees were appointed to have full control over voting and sale of the government's stake in AIG.
"The trustees will have absolute discretion and control over the AIG stock, subject only to the terms of the Trust Agreement, and will exercise all rights, powers and privileges of a shareholder of AIG," the New York Fed said in a statement in January.
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Ghe ff wat dot's connecten.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Two key Republican lawmakers on Monday said they are seeking an audit of the trust that manages the government's controlling stake in struggling American International Group Inc.
"While the trustees have the discretion to exercise full control over AIG, the trustees cannot be fired if their decisions conflict with the preferences of government officials," said House Oversight Committee ranking member Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., the House Financial Services ranking member. "This raises a troubling and urgent question: Who can the American taxpayers hold accountable if the trustees make a decision that is not in their best interest?"
Issa and Bachus sent letters to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Neil Barofsky, the congressionally appointed inspector general for the government's $700 billion bailout program, seeking to have either the agency or the IG audit the AIG Trust.
AIG has received more than $180 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout dollars to keep it afloat, in part, because of concern by Treasury officials that the supersized insurance corporation's collapse would have caused too much collateral damage to the financial markets.
The congressional request comes as AIG, its former chief executive, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, and its former chief financial officer, Howard Smith, agreed Monday on terms for binding arbitration for legal disputes. The arbitration will begin Oct. 15 and conclude by March 31. After a four-year investigation, Greenberg agreed earlier this month to pay $15 million to settle a suit with the Securities and Exchange Commission based on the agency's accusations that he fraudulently overstated AIG's financial position.
Last fall, AIG was close to insolvency because it employed complex financial instruments, known as credit default swaps, to insure illiquid mortgage securities without allocating sufficient reserve funds in case of default. AIG received billions in federal funds that it used to pay off counterparties at financial institutions in the United States and Europe, including Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America Corp. BAC, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM and Deutsche Bank AG / . AIG is in the process of selling of units to pay off the government investment.
In exchange, the administration has received an 80% stake in the company, and it set up a trust with independent trustees to manage the government's ownership stake.
Representatives for the TARP inspector general's office and Treasury did not return requests for comment.
The two lawmakers said they were concerned that the Treasury could set up a similar trust, raising the same concerns, to control the government's $50 billion stake in Citigroup Inc. through the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program.
"If the AIG Trust is going to be the model for the delegation of the management of the public's shares in Citigroup and other bailed-out companies, the American people have a right to know how these trusts are going to be designed, how they will operate and how the trustees can be held accountable," Issa and Bachus wrote.
AIG also has come under criticism for paying out $450 million in bonuses worldwide to a wide variety of employees, including traders of credit default swaps -- considered central to the financial crisis.
In January, the New York Federal Reserve appointed three trustees to oversee AIG as part of its effort to avoid conflicts with the regional central bank office's supervisory and monetary-policy functions and goals. The trustees were appointed to have full control over voting and sale of the government's stake in AIG.
"The trustees will have absolute discretion and control over the AIG stock, subject only to the terms of the Trust Agreement, and will exercise all rights, powers and privileges of a shareholder of AIG," the New York Fed said in a statement in January.
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Ghe ff wat dot's connecten.
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