For that special company who just doled out $1 million dollars or more bonuses to 73 executives. Straight from taxpayer bailout funds. American International Group.
Just a little reminder of what AIG executives were doing last year. They celebrated by spending half a million dollars for a single week’s play at a single posh spa hotel in California.
September 2008. CBS. The week after AIG received 2 year $85 million bail out loan from the Federal Reserve.
Lawmakers investigating the meltdown of AIG said the retreat didn’t include anyone from the financial products division that nearly drove the company under, but they were still enraged that executives of AIG’s main U.S. life insurance subsidiary spent $440,000 on the retreat, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings.
“It’s pretty despicable,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said.
AIG sent its executives to the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government that it needed to stave off bankruptcy. The resort tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees, according to invoices the resort turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
October 2008. New York Daily News. The week after AIG got the second $37.5 billion loan.
Four top AIG executives flipped U.S. taxpayers the bird by spending $86,000 on a partridge hunt at an English country manor as the feds gave their struggling firm billions to stay afloat.
The heedless hunters and their guests traipsed through the fields in tweed knickers, firing at defenseless birds and later washing down pigeon breasts and halibut with “the finest wines taxpayers’ money can buy,” the London-based News of the World newspaper reported.
In interviews with undercover reporters, the AIG honchos said they were aware that the markets were crashing back in New York – but were more interested in bagging birds.
Another AIG executive, Alvaro Mengotti, “slurped fine wine” while dispensing advice on surviving the financial crisis. “Invest your money in gold,” he reportedly said.
The AIG hunting party stayed at Plumber Manor, a 17th century country house in scenic Dorset, southwest of London. In four days, they racked up a $17,500 bill for food and rooms.
Priel and a German businessman identified by the paper as Stefan Nill flew in from Frankfurt by private jet costing another $17,500, the paper reported.
Mengotti flew in from Spain and was driven to the hotel in one of the fleet of limos that cost $8,750, the paper said.
…and a partridge in a pear tree.
December 2008. CBS. Hot cash burning its way into top brass pockets.
Insurance giant AIG was given $152 billion in bailout money by the federal government since nearly collapsing in September. Now the company is planning to take millions of that money and hand it over to employees in a program that sounds a lot like bonuses.
AIG’s new CEO is only taking a single dollar for his compensation this year and the top 60 executives won’t be getting bonuses. But that hasn’t stopped AIG from finding a creative way to keep some of their top employees in what they’re calling “retention payments,” reports CBS News correspondent Priya David.
To some it seems like business-as-usual end-of-the-year bonuses.
Business as usual? Did YOU get a million dollar bonus?
Former AIG execs under fire
Reuters. October 07, 2008.
Hat tip, Flying Hamster.
See:
- http://www.newsmax.com/us/aig_cuomo/2009/03/17/192811.html
- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/08/national/main4509695.shtml
- http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/10/14/2008-10-14_aigs_lords_and_lady_of_the_hunt_may_find.html
- http://flyinghamster.com/tag/aig/
Plumber Manor is a favourite with those who want escape to the country, to a beautiful part of dorset made famous by Thomas Hardy. If you ever want to experience English country life in the archetypal English country house, this is the place to go; a manor house that’s been in the same family since it was built in the 17th century. In my opinion, AIG should not have been spending all that money when they had just been bailed out, but can certainly understand their choice of Plumber Manor.