These are unusual times at insurance giant American International Group (AIG) - though the company is looking to exit many of its less profitable contracts, that won’t stop it keeping its eyes firmly on the mergers and acquisitions market.
According to a
Bloomberg report, AIG commercial CEO Rob Schimek spoke at a conference in New York and outlined that acquisitions could further bolster the business.
“We are very active in looking at any way to achieve growth, whether it’s organic or inorganic,” he reportedly said. “I would say low billions, or hundreds of millions, is probably a range that I would consider” for a so-called bolt-on deal to strengthen one of his units.
In recent years, AIG has been focusing on selling units in order to first repay its US bailout and then to simplify its operations. CEO Peter Hancock outlined in January that he would look to divest around $7 billion in assets in order to return capital to shareholders – but Schimek believes the insurer still has plenty of scale if a takeover would make the business more competitive.
“We have to just make sure that we’re continuing to stay focused on the main objectives and not get distracted by too many small bolt-on acquisitions,” he is reported to have said by
Bloomberg. “We already have size and scale and depth and breadth of capability, and so I don’t need to get bigger as my primary objective. I want to create more value. I want to be able to do things for our clients that no other insurance company in the world can do.”
Recently, AIG has been on a sales spree – reaching a deal to sell its broker-dealer network back in January and last month announcing the sale of United Guaranty Corporation to Arch Capital Group for $3.4 billion.
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