AIG Investment Unit Rebranded PineBridge Before Sale

American International Group Inc. (AIG) renamed its fund manager PineBridge Investments LLC as it prepares to hand the unit to Pacific Century Group.

Published on November 20, 2009

The sale of the business, which managed $88.7 billion as of June and was previously called AIG Global Investment Corp., will be completed next month, according to a regulatory filing. Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li’s Pacific Century agreed in September to pay about $500 million for the subsidiary.

AIG has rebranded property-casualty and life insurance units to distance the operations from a name associated with a $182.3 billion U.S. taxpayer bailout. The AIG logo has been “thoroughly wounded and disgraced” by the backlash over retention bonuses handed out after the government rescue, former Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy said in March.

The new name marks a “significant point as we transition to being an independent business,” Win Neuger, CEO of PineBridge, said today in an e-mailed statement. “We look to the future with a great deal of enthusiasm and confidence.”

AIG, which needed a U.S. rescue in September 2008 after soured bets tied to housing markets drained cash, is the biggest single customer of PineBridge. AIG and its subsidiaries made up 30 percent, or $26.6 billion, of the fund company’s assets under management. Institutional investors made up $36.7 billion, and retail investors another $25.4 billion.

The name PineBridge is based in part on the address of AIG’s New York headquarters, 70 Pine St. AIG agreed in June to sell the tower and a nearby building to a group led by Korea- based Kumho Investment Bank for an undisclosed price.