AIG raises $1.25b selling PICC stock near bottom of range

American International Group Inc raised $1.25 billion selling shares of Chinese insurer PICC Property & Casualty Co near the low end of a marketed range.

The largest commercial insurer in the United States and Canada sold 740 million shares of PICC P&C at HK$13.08 ($1.69) apiece, after earlier offering them at HK$13.06 to HK$13.35, according to terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg. The price represents a 7.9 percent discount to the stock's last close.

AIG Chief Executive Officer Peter Hancock, under pressure from activist investors John Paulson and Carl Icahn to boost returns and simplify operations, announced in January he was creating a new legacy portfolio. That book includes about a quarter of the company's equity and is comprised of discontinued businesses and investments that AIG plans to exit. The PICC P&C holding is one of the easier ones to sell, given that the stock is publicly traded in Hong Kong.