AIG pleads with bloggers to let them have their bonuses

I recently commented on the fact that AIG sleazily announced bonuses under the cover of the term ‘retention’ and the Thanksgiving holiday.

I got a surreal reply from their PR dept., full of ‘the dog ate my homework’ style excuses. If they are going to this kind of extraordinary length to corral private bloggers, clearly AIG’s self-entitled executives are more focused on people taking away their toy allowance than the mob storming their batman-like, skyscraper palace and pinning their reality-challenged heads under the blade of a guillotine.

The reaction, after all, is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s ‘let them eat cake’ for its sheer gall and total cluelessness.

Here is the email I got, for your amusement:

Dear David Galbraith:

Given your recent coverage of our company, I wanted to let you know that you can contact me if you are looking to get AIG’s perspective on an issue relating to the company.

I also I wanted to give you a heads up that we have responded to a letter from Representative Cummings regarding AIG’s retention planning. Here is the letter we have sent (I have attached it above).

Our key point is this: our highest priority is to pay back the government. We will do this by selling some of our high quality businesses. In our industry, the value of those businesses is based on two things: people and capital. The people that run those businesses are stars in their field. They are the ones who made AIG the largest player in insurance, and they are constantly being solicited by our major competitors. These employees are not with, nor have ever been with AIG Financial Products, the group that sold the credit default swaps. These folks are employees of AIG’s core insurance operations. Moreover, we’ve been informed by credit agencies that if we lose key insurance employees, our credit ratings will suffer (this is detailed in Mr. Liddy’s letter to Mr. Cummings).

For us to get the best value out the businesses we’re selling, and to ensure that our core insurance businesses remain profitable, we need them to stay. If they leave, the value our businesses will decline, and we will have less money to pay back taxpayers.

Regards,

Nick Ashooh

AIG

Regarding the line: “we’ve been informed by credit agencies that if we lose key insurance employees, our credit ratings will suffer”. Yves Smith puts it best:

“What rubbish. Do you really think there are a lot of senior executive jobs on offer in the insurance industry these days? And have you ever heard of credit ratings being dependent on a particular manager staying in the saddle? CEOs get deposed without there being any ratings impact. This explanation comes perilously close to being a bald-faced lie”.