AIG comes out of hiding on employee ID cards

By Reuters
Posted Dec. 10, 2010 at 9:42 a.m.

Bailed-out insurer American International Group took another step in its restructuring this week, but it is only noticeable to those looking closely: it put the company’s logo back on employee identification cards.

After its Sept. 2008 government rescue, AIG employees around the country came in for public harassment and in some cases outright attack, driven by anger at the company’s behavior and the size of the bailout package (which ultimately topped $182 billion).

Amid the attacks, AIG redesigned its corporate ID badges to remove the company’s prominent logo and to make it all but impossible to tell where the card carrier worked. The move was part of a larger security push that included X-ray bag scanners in the company’s offices and a heightened security presence.

But in an internal memo circulated earlier this week, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, AIG said the company’s security department was redesigning the cards to “proudly return the AIG logo” to their front side.

“As we have made demonstrable progress toward repaying the government, tempers have cooled, common sense has returned, and our people feel safer,” AIG spokesman Mark Herr said.

The redesigned badges are expected to roll out to employees in coming weeks.

AIG is in the midst of a restructuring deal to sell off assets, repay the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and leave the Treasury Department with a 92.1 percent stake in the company. Sources told Reuters on Wednesday the Treasury could sell a fifth of that stake next spring.

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