The giant insurance company AIG has revealed it lost $61.7 billion (£43 billion) in the last three months of last year, a record for an American corporation.
American International Group (AIG) lost $61.7 billion (£43 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2008, the insurance firm has reported.
The quarterly loss is the biggest ever recorded by an American corporation and is equivalent to more than £16 per share. It is also AIG's fifth in a row, marking deficits of more than £70 billion for the whole period.
Additionally, the US government revealed that it will help the company with an additional £21 billion, on top of the £105 billion it has already received. AIG was already the largest beneficiary of government money in the USA, with Citigroup and Bank of America receiving only £35 billion and £31.5 billion respectively.
The company was listed in the Forbes Global 2000 list in 2008 as one of the world's biggest public firms. However, it has been hit hard by the global economic downturn, which led to it requiring government assistance.
Officials in the USA are believed to be concerned that a collapse of AIG would cause severe economic problems both in the USA and the wider world - explaining the country's government's efforts to save it.
AIG's record loss has followed in the footsteps of RBS, which posted losses of £24.1 billion for last year, a British corporate record. The bank has also been the recipient of large sums of government money.
