AIG Sets Lofty Goals For Growth

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- American International Group's (AIG) CEO Robert Benmosche set some aggressive goals on its first quarter earnings conference call that left many questions hanging about the future of the insurer.

AIG CEO Robert Benmosche

"There is a lot to sort out and learn about their goals," said Sandler O'Neill analyst Paul Newsome. "There were still outstanding questions like, if they could achieve the mid-teens earnings growth they were talking about. I had questions about if they were in a cash flow positive. "

AIG's Benmosche said on the call that besides paying the government back, the insurer will raise $25 billion to $30 billion in deployable capital by 2015 and may start share buybacks in 2012.

"We believe they can begin to manage, probably in the second half of 2012, the amount of the equity we require in this company to support the liabilities that we have,"said Benmosche. "So it's really around that philosophy and we want to make sure we project ourselves as a very strong company like always live up to its guarantees at this point in time."