pru

Banks are clamoring to leave the government's financial rescue program, but insurers are eager to get in. Last week, Hartford Financial Group (HIG) announced it would participate. And now Lincoln National (LNC) is following suit, taking $950 million from the Treasury Department as part a series of...

In a recent interview with CNBC, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner predicted that repayment of Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) loans could begin soon, and suggested that there might be decreasing interest in the government's plan to help banks with toxic assets. At the same time, JP Morgan...

Prudential Financial (PRU) announced today that it is offering $1.25 billion in common stock. This move will raise money for general business expenditures, including adding capital to insurance and repaying short-term loans. Additionally, it will enable the company, American's second-largest...

Six months ago, big insurance companies' refrain when it came to receiving capital injections from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was "what about us?" For at least two of the half dozen insurers approved last week to receive the balance-sheet stabilizing investments, that's now...

The six insurance companies cleared by the Treasury Department last week to receive balance-sheet-bolstering capital injections from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) face a dilemma: The money could help them weather the investment losses sapping their strength but, as banks have found, it...

It looked like the balance in the TARP fund would improve as banks paid back the loans they received late last year. But taxpayers will not be that lucky. Insurance companies have been lobbying for aid and now the Treasury plans to give it to them, too. The federal government must have at least...

Life insurers are expected to be the next recipients of bailout funds from the Treasury Department's remaining $130 billion in TARP funds, according to a story in today's Wall Street Journal. In order to get the money, the life insurers must own a federally insured bank or savings and loan. Life...

The Wall Street Journal just noticed that the life insurance industry is in trouble. But that cow escaped the barn last fall (as I posted in October 2008 here, here, here and here) -- taking down Met Life (MET), Hartford Financial Services (HIG), and Prudential Financial (PRU). But even though the...