“NEW YORK, September 23, 2008 – American International Group, Inc. (AIG) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for a two-year, $85 billion revolving credit facility.”
So begins one of the more extraordinary press releases of our time. Extraordinary for two reasons: the sheer size of the numbers involved, and the language.When your correspondent was a struggling young reporter, and had run up an American Express bill he could not pay, his then fiancee (and now, incredibly, wife) didn’t extend him a revolving credit facility. She bailed him out.
AIG has to pay back the facility “from, among other things, the proceeds of certain asset sales and issuances of debt or equity securities”. That seems fair enough. In some ways, I’m still repaying the bailout – sorry, “revolving credit facility”.
And I had my Amex card cut in half in front of my very eyes at the company’s Sydney CBD headquarters. The upshot of my humiliation was that I’ve never since had any outstanding debt on a credit card.
Wonder what lessons AIG – and others – will learn?
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