AIG Pays Uncle Sam $6.9 Billion

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- American International Group (AIG) said Tuesday that it repaid about $6.9 billion to the U.S. Treasury Department as the insurance giant continues to make progress on exiting the large, complex array of bailouts it entered during the financial crisis.

AIG made the payment after closing on an earlier announced sale of MetLife (MET) stock that it received as part of a divestiture last year. AIG received $9.6 billion from the MetLife stock transaction, a portion of which is being held in an escrow account.

With its latest repayment, AIG has returned most of its $180 billion worth of borrowings and credit lines from taxpayers, including $36 billion worth in 2011. The company extinguished its debt to the Federal Reserve, though the Treasury Department still has an $11.3 billion stake in a special vehicle backed by equity in AIA, another business AIG divested last year in a public offering. It will also have a 92% equity stake in AIG to be sold over time.

"We will continue to take all the right steps to ensure that America's taxpayers recoup in full their investment in AIG," AIG CEO Robert Benmosche said in a statement. "Thanks to the hard work of AIG's employees, we have made extraordinary progress, which I am confident we will continue."

-- Written by Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York.

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