AIG reverses course, re-enters real estate lending

American International Group, usually known as AIG, is jumping back into the real estate investment game after years of trying to minimize its real estate business in the wake of the firm’s near collapse and bailout in 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported. AIG, which received more than $90 billion from the government to keep it afloat during the financial crisis, had been selling off the assets in its $24 billion real estate portfolio, which features trophy properties from around the world.

But the firm has changed direction, a source told the Journal, and the real estate division is reaching out to developers of new apartment buildings in major metropolitan areas, looking to invest in the second half of 2012.

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Among the developers contacted by AIG was Hal Fetner, CEO of Durst Fetner Residential. “We’ve done multi-family deals with them before, and we’re interested in working with them again,” HE told the Journal. [WSJ]