Unstructured Finance

Scanning Goldman Sachs’s newly published interactive annual report on Monday, Unstructured Finance had to do a double-take upon seeing American International Group highlighted as a client success story.

Yes, that’s right. AIG.

Goldman’s site features a 3-minute, 47-second video with two investment bankers, Devanshu Dhyani and Andrea Vittorelli, talking about their work on various AIG deals to help repay the U.S. government.

It also has photos of bankers around the globe who were involved with AIG stock sales, stock buybacks and assets sales, including Chris Cole, co-chairman of investment banking; Yan Liu, Ed Byun Dan Dees and Phyllis Luk, bankers based in Hong Kong; and Michael Tesser and Terence Lim, bankers based in New York.

“The most important aspect of success here was the full repayment of the U.S. government – $182 billion of funds committed to stabilizing AIG at the height of the financial crisis – not only repaid back in a matter of years but repaid back at a profit of $23 billion to the US taxpayer,” says Dhyani. “I think that’s a tremendous achievement for AIG, for people who are involved in this process.”

Jim Millstein, a former Lazard banker who oversaw the government’s stake in AIG at the U.S. Treasury Department until 2011, also contributed a quote to the site.

It was a good third quarter for Wall Street profits and an even better one for employees: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley set aside another $7.6 billion in compensation during the period, with year-to-date pay for the average employee up 15 percent at Goldman and 3 percent at Morgan Stanley.

Total comp accruals for both firms so far this year are up to $23 billion, 2 percent higher than the amount set aside a year ago. That equates to or 47 percent of adjusted net revenue, down from 50 percent for the first nine months of 2011, but still much higher than the pay levels some shareholders are demanding.

The data are a little befuddling, since New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli recently said he expects Wall Street to lose jobs this year, and for pay to drop. Recruiters and Wall Street pay consultants have also said they expect pay to either decline or remain relatively flat for many kinds of traders and bankers this year. And JPMorgan’s investment bank has already started chopping down banker pay.