Hank Greenberg, AIG, CIC and the Backdoor Bailout

当前财政部长亨利（汉克）保尔森Jr.上个月在诉讼中作证了关于美国政府收购美国国际集团的，他的话 - 大多数 - 麻木熟悉。解释2008年9月救助的“惩罚性”术语，他再次推荐给交易的“道德危险” - 艺术术语据援引，以描述公司不应该在犯规时依赖山姆叔叔的概念。“我认真对待道德风险，”他说。

在此交易中，出血AIG获得了850亿美元的反斜杠，最终将美国纳税人资金的182.3亿美元膨胀至182.3亿美元，财政部获得了79.9％的保险公司。“它确实确实惩罚了股东，”保尔森说。“这只是我们的系统应该工作的方式，当公司失败时，股东承担损失。”

是什么让保尔森的证词明显是塔尔e that can be pieced together through a court document, the Plaintiffs’ Corrected Proposed Findings of Fact, and the ex–Treasury secretary’s own foggy recollections. Despite talk of moral hazard, it turns out that at least one alternative to the taxpayer rescue was readily available. Specifically,中国投资公司, the big sovereign wealth fund of the People’s Republic of China, approached the Treasury Department directly and was eager to make an AIG investment — an offer that one or more officials in Paulson’s office in September 2008 believed was sufficient to meet the insurer’s needs at the time.

According to the court document, Treasury officials, after consulting with Paulson, told CIC that its help was not wanted. The secretary did not return CIC’s phone call, as requested by the Chinese government. A Treasury colleague was dispatched to tell the fund, in effect, to go away. A seperate, indirect entreaty from CIC was rebuffed as well.

Paulson’s brush-off of CIC is proof, critics say, that at the very least there were unexplored rescue options for AIG. “There were other solutions that did not require taxpayers’ or anybody else’s money,” says longtime investor Jim Rogers, a former partner of Soros Fund Management and a critic of the AIG bailout. “In the end, somebody did pay, and I just wish it hadn’t been the American taxpayer.”

披露提示两个GOB-犯规问题：是AIG的纳税人救助，美国历史上最大，真的是必要的吗？如果美国最大的地缘政治竞争对手救出它，那将发生什么，这将是拯救它的救助吗？

唉，我们可能永远不会知道，但启示揭开了那些将救助人员视为巨型收益的人，如果AIG肚子队 - 包括纽约的高盛小组，保尔森于1999年至2006年担任首席执行官，然后是被任命为财政部长。

“It’s sinister or cynical,” fumes James Cox, a professor at Duke Law School. “It’s protecting the big banks against the yellow peril.”

西装，Starr International Co., Inc. v. United States of America, effectively pits Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, CEO of Starr, among the largest shareholders of AIG, against regulators including former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and ex–New York Federal Reserve Bank president蒂莫西盖特纳谁也作证了。斯塔尔声称政府侵犯其宪法权利以及其他AIG投资者的宪法权利，而不只是赔偿财产。本套装在美国联邦索赔的美国法院提交。该套装亦称救助条款不公平，特别是在该交易的一部分的信用额度上有超过14％的利率。

Starr, based in Zug, Switzerland, is seeking more than $40 billion in damages. And in hiring David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, who represented former vice president Al Gore inBush v. Gore并致力于其他指出的案件，89岁的格林伯格已经排队了一些高仪式的法定火力。AIG本身是诉讼中的名义被告，意味着出于技术原因包含。西装正在进行中，没有预期的裁决直到明年。AIG发言人拒绝发表评论。

As for Greenberg himself, he was forced out as CEO of AIG in 2005 amid fraud allegations by Eliot Spitzer that the former New York State Attorney General never proved. Greenberg maintained control of Starr, whose business was closely intertwined with that of AIG.

由于信用市场冻结和股票价格困扰，AIG并不是唯一一个刚刚遇到麻烦的金融公司。两个政府赞助的抵押贷款公司Fannie Mae和Freddie Mac于2008年9月亚博篮球怎么下串6日被安排在1998年9月6日，因为他们的贷款投资组合的价值崩溃了。Merrill Lynch & Co., losses mounting, agreed on Sunday, September 14, to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. At 1:45 a.m. the following Monday, September 15, Lehman Brothers Holdings filed for bankruptcy, after a plan for London-based Barclays to buy it was nixed by the U.K.’s then-chancellor of the ExchequerAlistair Darling。That forced the venerable Reserve Primary Fund, a money market fund that held Lehman commercial paper, to “break the buck,” the value of its shares falling from $1 to 97 cents. Redemptions were suspended. Panic reigned.

基于纽约的AIG的财务状况已经恶化了。该公司正在出血现金，主要原因是由于保险费用上升，它撰写了621亿美元的有毒抵押债务（CDO）。9月15日，雷曼当天雷曼提交了第11章，主要评级机构降级了AIG的长期信用前景，触发了银行交易对手的进一步抵押呼吁。降级几乎肯定会破产保险巨头。

We know what happened next. As part of the bailout, the New York Fed, on behalf of the U.S. government, took control of AIG’s management and directed it to pay off the banks that had bought insurance on the CDOs — despite the fact that these counterparties, including Goldman Sachs, Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and Société Générale of Paris, had largely underwritten or managed these cratering securities themselves. The public was outraged.

A key point of contention was the New York Fed’s insistence that AIG pay the banks 100 cents on the dollar for the insurance, which was in the form of credit default swaps, even though AIG had been negotiating discounts on the insurance. That made Goldman Sachs, Paulson’s alma mater, whole on its $14 billion in CDO protection and the other banks whole on theirs. The CDOs were shunted into a special-purpose vehicle called Maiden Lane III, named after the street where the New York Fed keeps a back door through which it can sneak people without undue attention. (Perhaps that’s another reason to call the rescue a backdoor bailout.) A spokeswoman for the New York Fed declined to comment, while the Treasury Department did not respond to phone calls.

根据危机，该诉讼与主权财富资金的变化 - 自2004年的国有投资者蘑菇蘑菇蘑菇涌入，达到估计的5.3万亿美元，据2007年起至2007年的24万亿美元。亚博赞助欧冠机构投资者’s Sovereign Wealth Center。

The funds have evolved, becoming more sophisticated stewards of their nations’ wealth and less likely to serve as bottomless sources of liquidity in times of trouble. Before and during the financial crisis, they were pouring money into foundering U.S. and European banks with abandon.

在据主权财富中心数据的说法，是最大的交易GIC’s $6.9 billion investment in New York–based Citigroup in January 2008 and a $10.3 billion deal with Zurich-based UBS that May. In November 2007 the阿布扎比投资机构将花旗集团沉入75亿美元。韩国投资公司和科威特投资机构每月在淡马锡举行的44亿美元投资之后，每2008年1月耕作20亿美元的美林林。2008年7月，Merrill By Charlotte北卡罗来纳州银行的灾难性收购前几个月，腾马斯克额外花费了34亿美元，这是在2009年1月1日完成的。该卡塔尔投资权威2008年在巴克莱的2008年投资总额为770亿美元。该基金还沉没了44亿美元，分为两项与苏黎世的信贷瑞士合作。列表继续。

“There were multiple motivations back then,” says Rachel Ziemba, director of emerging markets at Roubini Global Economics in London. “One was to gain access to assets at a discount, two was trying to leverage their own financial institutions and partner with the firms they were investing in, and three was some feeling they would be thanked — there was a desire to build up political capital.” Some of the sovereign funds would come to regret their munificence.

“The investments of 2007–’08 were largely interpreted as sovereign wealth funds coming to the rescue of the Western financial system,” says Sven Behrendt, founder of Geneva-based consulting firm地理世纪科。“基于财务参与更广泛的无耻市场访问的财务参与，”对政治争议“的理解有隐含。”

Don’t count on a repeat in the next crisis. “Many sovereign wealth funds, in particular those that were created in the past ten years, today take more-measured decisions,” Behrendt says. “They make their risk-return calculations and see if any future investment fits into their asset allocations. The times of personality-driven investment decisions are gone.”

In September 2008, though, CIC was still a yearling. By early 2006, China had surpassed Japan to become the biggest holder of foreign exchange reserves — more than $1 trillion — and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) was worried that it was overly exposed to the dollar, which had tumbled steeply against industrialized nations’ currencies, according to a history of CIC on the Sovereign Wealth Center. SAFE had already set up Central Huijin Investment to support domestic banks, a fund that was eventually rolled into CIC, which was formally launched in September 2007 and, after much foot-dragging by the People’s Bank of China and SAFE, capitalized with more than $200 billion.

批评者渴望该基金的早期管理：CIC的第一个投资是经典的喧嚣。例如，通过惠金，它于2007年6月在2007年6月购买了9.9％的黑石集团首次公开发行，以29美元的折扣价格与其他投资者31美元。股票简要飙升，然后在2008年-09崩溃中跌破5美元。2007年12月，CIC在纽约摩根斯坦利的9.9％的股权上支付了56亿美元，通过敞篷车职位产生9％。2008年2月，CIC与纽约的私募股权公司J.C. Flowers＆Co公司组建，形成了投资于陷入困境的金融股的基金，占资本300亿美元的80％。

The state-owned fund also held $5.4 billion of its cash in the Reserve Primary Fund, the ill-fated money market fund. CIC managed to withdraw before the fund froze redemptions. In June 2014, China’s National Audit Office disclosed it had found evidence of mismanagement at CIC and inadequate due diligence in 12 overseas investments. CIC now has $652.7 billion in assets, according to the Sovereign Wealth Center.

2008年CIC收购或大型AIG投资是什么意思？它当然可能会坚持认为，保险公司在互换中努力讨价还价，耗资高级队伍和其他银行大雄鹿。“AIG应该推回来 - 他们应该抓住抵押品，”芝加哥咨询公司Tavakoli结构融资总裁Janet Tavakoli说。“那些CDO是欺诈性的。”

At least one other insurer had obtained a steep discount on swap payments it owed to a bank. Critically, as part of the rescue terms, AIG surrendered the right to sue the bank counterparties. That likely wouldn’t have happened if CIC were backstopping the firm. The New York Fed directed AIG to redact the names of bank counterparties and the identities of CDOs in a key Securities and Exchange Commission filing — wrapping the whole affair in a cloak of secrecy that has fed conspiracy theories.

2008年9月16日之前和之后的日子究竟发生了什么，当天AIG的董事会同意纽约喂养的惩罚性和非现状，无可收碳的条款？这就是法院文件的地方（原告的事实调查结果）进来。它当时从关键参与者中引用了封存片段：财政部官员，银行家和AIG高管。

The document cites John Studzinski, a partner in Blackstone’s advisory team working with AIG, who described investor interest from sovereign funds, including two of the biggest: CIC and Singapore’s GIC. The sovereign wealth funds had sufficient dry powder. At year-end 2008, CIC had $297.5 billion in assets and GIC an estimated $198 billion, according to the Sovereign Wealth Center. Through a Blackstone spokesman, Studzinski declined to comment.

该文件说，美国政府气馁中国从帮助AIG。一个关键句指是指CIC报价。“在下午12:25。on September 16, 2008, Taiya Smith, Paulson’s deputy chief of staff and executive secretary, informed Paulson’s chief of staff and Under Secretary for International Affairs David McCormick that the CIC was ‘prepared to make a big investment in AIG, but would need Hank to call [Chinese Vice Premier] Wang Qishan.’” The document says Smith added that “the Chinese ‘were actually willing to put in a little more than the total amount of money required for AIG.’” Based on the original bailout terms, that might have been more than $85 billion.

当天，调查结果说，麦考克斯与保尔森谈到中国兴趣投资AIG。“麦考克斯然后告诉史密斯，国库”不希望中国人在AIG的这一点上，“”文件说。然后它被遗弃到史密斯向中国解释，财政部没有希望他们投资。她花了两个小时，在加利福尼亚州Yorma Linda的以前计划的贸易和商务会议上。“所有[中国官员]想谈论是AIG，”她被引用说。

康涅狄格州对冲基金公司威斯波特威斯波特的威斯波特总统McCormick博览会拒绝发表评论。史密斯是一家在波士顿，弗吉尼亚州立国为重点咨询公司的管理合伙人，弗吉尼亚州的一个以来的中国专注的咨询公司，是保尔森研究所的一名高级顾问，由芝加哥大学的前财政部长成立，促进经济增长和清洁energy in the U.S. and China. Efforts to contact Smith were not successful.

What does Paulson have to say about the CIC offer? A spokeswoman for the former Treasury secretary sent an e-mail attachment with an excerpt of his court testimony.

On October 6, under examination by Boies, Paulson testified repeatedly that he could not remember any offer from CIC at that point. “I have no recollection of that, but I would say this,” Paulson said. “There’s no way I would have encouraged them to come in because I was certain that they would not have done a deal of the size that it took to save AIG without a government guarantee, and I couldn’t — couldn’t provide one, and the government couldn’t provide that assurance.” That seems on the surface at odds with the statement by Smith about CIC’s eagerness to invest. The court document makes no mention of a request by CIC for a government guarantee.

The former Treasury secretary testified that he did, in fact, recollect talking to then-president George W. Bush about CIC making an additional investment in Morgan Stanley, also in the midst of a liquidity crisis and in which the sovereign wealth fund had already sunk $5.6 billion the previous year. CIC ultimately did not invest more capital in Morgan Stanley in 2008. The fund did invest an additional $1.2 billion in the bank the following year.

同时保持,他不记得任何的中投fer on or before September 16, Paulson said that in retrospect he wouldn’t have wanted to sow panic given AIG’s precarious state. “I sure wouldn’t have wanted to spook the Chinese knowing what I know now,” Paulson testified. “And I’ll tell you, I can only imagine how they would have reacted if I had to air the dirty linen and tell them what we were dealing with at that point in time.”

救助批评者称之为混淆。“这是荣誉资本主义的缩影，”德拉克罗里说。“发生了什么是恶劣的，公众并没有得到它的令人震惊，国会不明白它是多么令人震惊。”

To be sure, by September 16, after the downgrades of the previous day, AIG’s money was running out. The government was readying the term sheet for the takeover. Paulson might have viewed a CIC approach as a distraction. “I’m skeptical it was a real option,” says Damon Silvers, former deputy chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, which investigated the AIG bailout. “It was the 16th. Time’s up. The cash had to be in hand.”

Paulson said as much in his testimony. “If the CEO of AIG on the 13th or 14th when we were talking with him or on the 15th had said, ‘We are in discussions with CIC and we’re negotiating to make an investment, would you say something to them, I would have said, ‘You betcha,’” Paulson testified. His redacted Treasury Department phone logs for the 13th and 14th of September, which were released under a Freedom of Information Act request [from the纽约时报]，是空白的，因为他是在纽约美联储会议上，住在华尔道夫阿斯托里亚酒店。

一个明显的问题是9月16日在游戏中为时已晚，以获得CIC辅助救援。这肯定是一个忙碌的一天：那些相同的电话日志显示了保尔森在第16阶或接受了大约60个电话，包括与前总统布什，Geithner，Bernanke，Berkshire Hathaway Ceo Warren Buffett和总统候选人约翰麦凯恩和巴拉克奥巴马的对话。但法庭文件没有特别说明，9月16日是中国优惠所提出的日期;它只说，史密斯在那个日期上通知了下秘书麦考克。因为保尔森说他可以记住这么少的情况，我们可能永远不会知道细节。

However — and this may be crucial — September 16 was only the day that AIG’s board signed the term sheet authorizing the government takeover. Term sheets, by their nature, are nonbinding agreements. “It’s a bid,” says Duke professor Cox, referring to the legal documents in general. “It’s important to remember that a term sheet is not the deal.”

最终的协议，载有繁重的条件，包括那些保护银行从可能的AIG诉讼中的银行，并未宣布，直到9月23日。到那时保尔森已经解雇了AIG CEO Robert Willumstad。他被Ed-Allstate Corp.首席执行官Edward Liddy替换为董事会萨克斯董事会成员和审计委员会主席，负责清算公司。

无论如何，中国基金仍然持久。审判成绩单显示，前北京清华大学教授的前高盛萨克总统约翰·桑顿与中国联系，已经接近保尔森关于CIC购买或投资AIG，但前财政部长再也无法回忆起。“我怀疑是在第16次之后，”保尔森关于这种方法。“And as I’ve thought about it, I thought it was probably coming from a man named Gao, who ran CIC, which reported up to, you know, the State Council, but I don’t remember when, when John approached me, but I do remember that.” He was referring, presumably, to CIC’s president at the time, Gao Xiqing. CIC did not return an e-mail seeking comment, nor did a spokeswoman for GIC.

There is no call to or from Thornton listed for the 15th or 16th on Paulson’s Treasury Department phone log. There is a ten-minute call from Thornton, from 7:40 a.m. to 7:50 a.m., on September 19th, four days before AIG announced the definitive bailout agreement.

Thornton于2009年加入了第一届CIC国际咨询委员会。他也是一家基于多伦多的巴里克金公司的董事长，并将巡回型坦克的Brookings机构联席主席。Thornton没有回复电话和电子邮件在布鲁克斯发言人留下的发言人。

融合者认为，如果保险公司已经腹部，中国的领导层，CIC的主要投资将是中国领导力的危险事项 - 如果保险公司已经腹部落后，潜在地是一个灾难性的。“他们会冒着巨大的风险，”他说。“他们会冒着推翻政府的风险。”（讽刺意味着，在额外融资之后，美国政府最终根据财政部12月的新闻发布，美国政府最终从AIG Bairout获得了227亿美元的利润。该数字已经有争议。）

CIC堕落的一个因素可能是AIG在中国的大型业务。“AIG在中国销售了大量保险，”艾尔维尔说，他现在是华盛顿AFL-CIO工会战略和特别律师的主任。“他们可能已经考虑了AIG在国内破产的影响。”此外，AIG紧密地与中国历史交织有关：它的前任公司在1919年在上海的外滩区的Cornelius Vander Starr成立于1919年，在亚洲跨越第二次世界大战的亚洲分支机构。

这一事实，即CIC的优惠从未如此公开则与新闻本身一样惊人。它突破了掩饰的指责。

For the record, Paulson’s own book on the subject,On the Brink- 在保尔森10月6日的证词期间发出的副本 - 没有提到CIC报价。andrew ross sorkin的精美Too Big to Fail或者金融危机咨询报告, the official report by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

更过分的,也许,众多政府探讨tigations that drilled down into the AIG takeover and the subsequent swap payments to the banks made no mention of the CIC offer. One of the first, by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in November 2009, did not refer to any sovereign wealth fund offers. A SIGTARP spokesman declined to comment on whether the office knew of the CIC offer or others at the time. A person familiar with the audit process said that if the information had been made available to SIGTARP, it would have been included in its November 2009 report.

国会监督小组的六月监督2010年的监督报告在2010年参考了AIG和主权财富基金的讨论，但没有提及特定资金或任何投资的优惠。“我们采访了众多美联储和财政部官员，而且他们都没有提到这件事，”副副主席银铁说。Similarly, a September 2011 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office referred to talks between AIG and a group of private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, investment banks and others regarding financial assistance but made no mention of specific offers from CIC or GIC to the Treasury Department. A GAO spokesman e-mailed a copy of the report declining further comment.

“That would be one elephant-size omission,” says Michael Smallberg, an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group in Washington. “All taxpayers have a legitimate interest in this. I’d be fascinated to know the reasons for why Hank Paulson didn’t engage.”

Duke教授Cox表示，保尔森可能不会在心理上倾向于将这种巨大的金融机构交给外国权力。“鉴于他的个性和DNA，他喜欢负责，”Cox解释道。“如果你让其他人进入交易，你就不再负责。”显然，术语表的要素可能受到质疑 - 例如换档的100％收益以及不要求对银行对手举行补救的要求。

对于所有关于CIC报价的生存能力的所有怀疑主义，融合者肯定会发现保尔森在大多数情况下都不会批准。“中国购买了一个系统性重要的公司的那一天，因为美国政府不能成为美国的日子，”他说。“保尔森也太机会让这样的事情发生在他的手表上。”

对于1980年代担任担任抵押专家的Tavakoli，作为Goldman Sachs的抵押专家，它都归结为前财政部长与他的前雇主联系起来。“保尔森说，'我救了银行系统，我做了正确的方式，”她说。“他以一种使高盛的方式这样做了。”

Ultimately, the geopolitics of the situation may have proved overwhelming for Paulson. “The savior of the financial system would have been a communist, totalitarian country,” says Cox. “The irony of the Chinese saving Wall Street would have been too much.”