Counter-Take: U.S. Treasury Could Have Sold More AIG Shares

This sale was for 164 million shares and the price went off at $30.50 per share after closing at $31.34 on Friday.  Now shares are up more than 2% at $32.00 and we have already seen 25 million shares trade in the secondary market.  AIG was buying up to $3 billion worth of the stock, which keeps the perceived float and the perceived dilution lower.

This share sale was conducted by a huge group of book-runners: BofA Merrill Lynch; Barclays; Citigroup; Credit Suisse; Deutsche Bank Securities; Goldman Sachs; J.P. Morgan; Macquarie Capital; Morgan Stanley; UBS Investment Bank; and Wells Fargo Securities.

This was also higher of a sale price than the last two share sales from the Treasury.  Any time you see the price of a secondary offering trading higher than the offer price AND higher than when the share sale was first telegraphed, it is almost always a good sign.  The Treasury could have sold more AIG shares.

JON C. OGG

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