AIG pays $12.1m in bonuses

After getting the OK from pay czar Kenneth Feinberg AIG paid out £12.1m in bonuses, agencies report

Dow Jones and Reuters report that AIG paid $4m to a total of four executives, three of whom AIG named:

• $1m paid to David Herzog, its chief financial officer
• $1.6m to Kristian Moor, president and chief executive officer of Chartis, AIG's property/casualty insurance business
• unspecified amounts to two other executives, one of which is Jay Wintrob, an executive vice president

The awards were originally 60% payable in December 2008 and 40% payable in December 2009, but were voluntarily delayed for Feinberg to review, AIG said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

Feinberg said: "Restructuring of these retention contracts would not be consistent with the Public Interest Standard," with respect to three of the covered employees, AIG said in its filing.

AIG also paid $14.4m to the retirement account of Edmund Tse, the former senior vice chairman of life insurance who retired at AIG's 2009 annual meeting.

Trouble retaining staff

Reuters said AIG warned in the SEC filing that pay restrictions may hurt its ability to retain and motivate its best-performing employees.

Bloomberg reported that cash salary was reduced by 91% for 12 top executives under recommendations by Kenneth Feinberg.

Bonuses will be withheld for five managers in the Financial Products unit of AIG responsible for terminating the derivatives trades that fueled most of the company’s almost $100 billion in 2008 losses, Feinberg said.

Half top bosses have left

Feinberg has jurisdiction over the 25 highest-paid employees at AIG but 13 managers who would have been under Feinberg’s jurisdiction have left AIG, Bloomberg said.

More than 40 managers including restructuring chief Paula Reynolds, vice chairman Matthew Winter and property-casualty executive Kevin Kelley have left AIG since the insurer’s September 2008 bailout.