AIG to Sell its 13.8% Stake in Transatlantic Holdings

American International Group said it would sell its 13.8 percent stake in reinsurer Transatlantic Holdings Inc, worth about $500 million at Thursday’s closing stock price.

AIG, nearly 80 percent owned by the U.S. government, said on Friday that its American Home Assurance Co unit would sell the 9.2 million Transatlantic shares in an offering to be held by March 9.

Separately, Transatlantic said it would buy up to 2 million shares of the shares in the offering.

AIG intends to reserve a portion of the offering for purchase by index funds.

Transatlantic shares closed at $53.76 on Thursday, off their 52-week high of $55.90. In June 2009, AIG sold 26 million Transatlantic shares at $38 per share.

AIG, which is trying to repay the government after a $182.3 billion bailout, agreed this week to sell its Asian life insurance unit for $35.5 billion to Britain’s Prudential Plc .

It is also near a deal to sell another large foreign life insurance unit to MetLife Inc in a $15 billion deal.

(Reporting by Paritosh Bansal; editing by John Wallace)