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White House OK with $7 million salary for AIG CEO

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-19 04:01

WASHINGTON: The White House is fine with bailed-out insurer AIG's decision to pay its new chief executive $7 million a year.

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs says that's the price of competent leadership to make the company profitable again.

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AIG disclosed the details of Robert Benmosche's annual compensation package in a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also could earn millions more in performance-based incentives.

Last fall, the government saved AIG from collapse with a bailout package worth up to $182.5 billion.

Gibbs says Benmosche's pay will be reviewed by Kenneth Feinberg, the government official in charge of policing compensation packages for companies that took federal bailout money.