Tue, 16th September, 2008 - Posted by
Source: FT.com
Insurance stocks joined banks at the forefront of a second session of heavy selling on European equities markets on Tuesday, as investors continued to worry that Lehman Brothers might not be the only big US institution to be claimed by the current crisis.
Concern about the financial health of AIG deepened after the insurer’s credit ratings were downgraded amid a deepening sense of doom at the company. AIG’s shares tumbled 60 per cent in New York overnight as New York state insurance regulators allowed the company to access $20bn of assets from its own subsidiaries to use as collateral for a loan in an attempt to stave off a liquidity crisis.