Reports: 24 banks benefited from AIG bailout

NEW YORK (AP) — The federal bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc. has benefited at least two dozen U.S. and foreign financial institutions who collected some $50 billion, according to media reports Saturday.

AIG — once the world’s largest insurer — is paying money to its counterparties because it had agreed to guarantee them against losses from credit default swaps they had invested in.

Citing a confidential document and people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal said recipients of AIG money include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, each of which received roughly $6 billion in payments between mid-September and December 2008.

Also receiving AIG money last year were Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America Corp., French bank Societe Generale SA and, to a lesser extent, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and HSBC Holdings PLC, the newspaper said.

Meanwhile, business magazine Fortune on Saturday issued its own list of 15 banks that received AIG money, including: Calyon, Credit Agricole of France; UBS; Barclays; Coral Purchasing, DZ Bank of Germany; Bank of Montreal; Rabobank of the Netherlands. Fortune, which credited a “reliable source,” did not supply dollar amounts that each bank received.