US - AIG Global Real Estate has today announced the $12.4bn (€9.4bn) fund management business has been put up for sale, as part of the American International Group's (AIG's) divestment programme set out at the end of last year.
The real estate fund management business will be sold to help repay an $85bn loan granted by the Federal Reserve to help provide liquidity to AIG during the financial crisis.
The business operated 15 fund programmes at the end of September 2008 and $12.4bn in assets under management along with $5.2bn in equity capital commitments.
It currently manages a range of core plus, value-added and opportunistic style funds for a wide range of investor clients, including pension funds, and is headquartered in New York, but also has regional offices spread across Europe, Japan, Latin America and Asia.
AIG's property portfolio has more than 53m sq ft of retail, residential, office and industrial properties in over 50 countries.
Merrill Lynch and the Bank of America are the firm's financial advisers and have started soliciting interest for the business.
AIG has not set a timeframe for selling the fund management business and was unwilling to comment further on the decision to sell.
The US Treasury, Federal Reserve and AIG agreed facilities to prevent the company going bankrupt last November and resolved AIG's liquidity issues through its credit default swap portfolio and its US securities lending programme.
If you have any comments you would like to add to this or any other story, contact Poppy Sketchley on + 44 (0)20 7261 4629 or email poppy.sketchley@ipe.com
