General Finance
photo by M Perdiguero, Flickr

American General Finance is one of the leading finance corporations in the United States, providing bill consolidation loans, home equity loans, personal loans, home improvement loans, loans for unexpected expenses, retail financing and other credit related products and services. It is a member of the American International Group, Inc , which is an American insurance corporation.

The main interest of American General Finance lies in Consumer Lending (Secured & Unsecured) Mortgages (1st & 2nd Mortgages ), Home Equity Lines of Credit and Retail Sales Financing Credit Insurance. The company operates in four segments that are as follows:

  • General Insurance
  • Life Insurance and Retirement Services
  • Financial Service
  • Asset Management

The Branch Network of American General Finance deals in real estate loans and non-real estate loans, purchases retail sales finance contracts and provides retail sales financing services.

If we look at the company history, it was founded in 1920 at Evansville, Indiana to finance sales of Inland Motor Truck vehicles. With its vision to be the world’s first-choice provider of insurance and financial services, it opened its 500th branch in the year 1972 and soon become one of the most successful companies in the world. In the year 1979, its assets reached $1 billion and by the year 2005, the company’s assets were worth $25 billion. Today, it has more than 12,000 branches in 45 states in United States, in the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico, and in the Virgin Islands, and is serving more than a million families. The company employs more than 8000 staff in its 12,000 branches but thanks to current financial scenario, all is not well in American General Finance.

American General Finance was greatly affected by the global financial crises of 2007-2008. In 2008, it was reported that company had lost assets worth US $535 billion. In the year 2008, the company closed down 250 local branches. Despite efforts to make the company sail through the storm, things took a turn for the worse, and in 2009, American General Finance closed 150 more branches, laying off more than 640 employees in the process. Currently, the size of the company is 5000 employees and yearly revenue of last year was $2.89 billion.