American financial and insurance group American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is selling its banking unit in Russia – “AIG Bank”, is reported in the press release of the company on June 29.

Banque PSA Finance SA, registered in June 2008 as the financial branch of French auto concern PSA Peugeot Citroen, is going to buy the above mentioned bank. German Deutsche Bank will be the financial consultant from the part of AIG, whereas the Russian unit of CMS will consult the French side.

Other terms of the transaction have not yet been disclosed.

It should be recalled that the net loss of AIG for the Ist quarter of 2009 decreased by 44 per cent and amounted to 4.35 billion dollars, while a year earlier the company recorded a net loss of  7.8 billion U.S. dollars. In doing so, the losses in terms of one share in the I quarter of 2009 amounted to 1.98 dollars while a year ago they were recorded at U.S. 3.09 dollars per share.

The company AIG has been one of the biggest victims of the world financial crisis. In autumn of the last year it was on the brink of bankruptcy, and the government had to actually buy back the entire company, spending tens of billions of dollars. Since then, AIG has begun to restructure, gradually getting rid of its units and moving to a less bulky structure of the company.

In April of this year AIG agreed to the sale of its insurance business named 21st Century Insurance Group to Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services Group. Under the deal, one of the “daughters” of Zurich Financial will pay 1,9 billion dollars to AIG, of which U.S. $ 1.5 billion will be paid in cash and another 400 million dollars – in the form of debt securities guaranteed by Zurich Insurance Company, the principal operating unit of Zurich Financial.