. . . and a partridge in a taxpayer-funded boondoggle.
A group of AIG execs went on an $87,000 partridge hunt at a posh English manor last week – on the US taxpayers’ dime and at the same time the debt-riddled insurance giant was accepting another nearly $40 billion from the government to shore it up, according to Britain’s News of the World.
The party included four AIG execs – including at least two from New York, the paper said.
AIG’s general manager in Frankfurt, Sebastian Preil, flippantly told one undercover reporter, “The recession will go on until about 2011 – but the shooting was great today, and we are all relaxing fine,” the newspaper said.
The two New York execs were Jeffrey Malkovsky, a senior director in Manhattan, and John Roberts, who advises AIG, the paper said. Roberts came with Hilary James, manager of the Bristol Plaza hotel in New York.
An AIG flak defended the trip, saying it was previously planned.
The firm has now been given a government lifeline totaling $122.5 billion.
It has already been in hot water for the excessive perks it has allowed execs to enjoy even after the government rescue.
They include a $440,000 junket at a California spa and another planned pricey getaway in the state, which was quickly nixed after word leaked out about the first.