Financial Winners & Losers: AIG

AIG makes bonus headlines again, and PNC sells equity to pay back TARP, as financial shares trade mixed on Wendesday.
By Scott Eden ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Financial-sector stocks were mixed Wednesday morning as bonus checks for AIG (AIG) - Get Report executives once again made headlines and as Pennsylvania regional bank PNC Financial minted new shares as it works to pay back TARP.

American International Group will

give $100 million in bonuses to employees

of the unit that some critics have called the very root of the crisis: the now-infamous "financial products" division, which created and sold the subprime mortgage derivatives. The sum is $20 million lower than what AIG had promised those employees, by contract, before the financial meltdown.

AIG shares were changing hands in late-morning trading Wednesday at $24, up 3 cents.

Meanwhile,

MetLife

(MET) - Get Report

, which reported better-than-expected earnings late Tuesday, confirmed that it's in talks to acquire AIG's Alico unit, but that the outcome of the negotiations remained uncertain.

The New York Times

has reported a possible purchase price of between $14 billion and $15 billion for Alico, a life insurance provider.

Shares of MetLife were falling sharply Wednesday, down 4.5%, or $1.64, to $34.73.

Following in the footsteps of its megabank rivals, PNC Financial

priced a stock offering Wednesday

as it seeks to make good on the $7.6 billion in bailout money it received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Though the shares were priced at a discount to PNC stock's closing price Tuesday, the Pittsburgh-based bank expects to raise $3 billion, much of which it will use to help cut its check to the Treasury Department.

Shares of PNC were declining 25 cents, or 0.5% to $54.40.

Among megabank names,

Citigroup

(C) - Get Report

shares were gaining a penny to $3.42;

Wells Fargo

(WFC) - Get Report

was losing 2.2% to $28.10; and

JPMorgan Chase

(JPM) - Get Report

was falling 0.4% to $40.40.

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

disclosed late Tuesday that it will

raise the base salaries

for its CEO and two of his top lieutenants. The hikes were relatively modest -- a $150,000 raise for new boss Brian Moynihan (Ken Lewis made more), for example. Still, they don't include the cash bonuses and lucrative stock options by which executives make their real money.

Bank of America shares were trading at $15.62, up 2 cents from the previous close.

In other finance-pro paycheck news,

Morgan Stanley's

(MS) - Get Report

new CEO told

The Wall Street Journal

for an article published Wednesday that one of his major goals for 2010 is

reducing the firms' compensation ratio

. In 2009, Morgan Stanley paid out 62% of its revenue to its bankers, traders and other pros.

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

, by comparison, dished out 36%. The Morgan CEO, James Gorman, said he would reduce the ratio mostly by boosting revenue rather than by cutting pay.

Morgan Stanley shares were trading at $27.85, down 0.8%, while rival Goldman's stock was rising 0.5% to $157.76.

-- Written by Scott Eden in New York

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Scott Eden has covered business -- both large and small -- for more than a decade. Prior to joining TheStreet.com, he worked as a features reporter for Dealmaker and Trader Monthly magazines. Before that, he wrote for the Chicago Reader, that city's weekly paper. Early in his career, he was a staff reporter at the Dow Jones News Service. His reporting has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Men's Journal, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, and the Believer magazine, among other publications. He's also the author of Touchdown Jesus (Simon & Schuster, 2005), a nonfiction book about Notre Dame football fans and the business and politics of big-time college sports. He has degrees from Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis.

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