AIG makes history with $62bn loss

New York - American International Group managed to lose $62bn in just 92 days. That's nearly $470 000 a minute. And it's more money than Bill Gates' net worth.

The insurance giant's quarterly loss reported on Monday was the biggest in corporate history, topping the previous record of about $45bn set by Time Warner during the fourth quarter of 2002.

That news came as the government said it would plunge another $30bn in taxpayer money into the ailing New York-based company, which already has received some $150bn in US aid since September.

But that hasn't stopped the losses at AIG. The company, first wounded when the housing slump and credit crisis decimated the value of its investments in mortgage-backed securities, is now being hurt by the recession as well.

AIG's quarterly loss totaled $61.7bn for the October to December period, about 12 times the $5.3bn it lost in the same quarter of 2007. That was more than half the $114.53bn lost by nearly all other Standard & Poor's 500 companies combined in the fourth quarter. This is the first quarter ever that the S&P 500 has tallied a loss.

AIG lost more in the fourth quarter of 2008 than it made from 2001 to 2007, when net income totaled more than $58bn.

Beyond just financial markets, this super-sized loss stands out.

AIG's loss is more than Bill Gates' net worth of $57bn as of last September, according to Forbes magazine's "400 Richest Americans" list that had Microsoft founder Gates as No. 1.

The US government provided $62bn for immediate relief and rescue efforts in the months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

If $62bn was spread across the US population, Americans could each get about $200.

AIG's loss amounts to 92% of the $67.4bn that Americans spent at world's largest retailer Wal-Mart Stores in the fourth quarter, which includes the holiday season.

-It would take a person spending $1m per day, everyday, the next 169 years to spend as much money as AIG lost during the fourth quarter, which lasted just 92 days.

- AP