Weil Gotshal & Manges and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom have taken the lead roles on AIG's sale of an 80% stake in its consumer finance lender, American General Finance (AGF), to the Fortress Investment Group, reports The Am Law Daily.

The purchase price of the deal – which will allow AIG to offload between $17bn (£11bn) and $19bn (£12bn) worth of debt – has not been disclosed, but AGF has been previously valued at around $2bn (£1.3bn).

AIG will reportedly book a loss of about $1.9bn (£1.2bn) on the sale.

Weil represented AIG with a team led by corporate partner Michael Aiello, as the firm continues to play a key role on AIG sales.

The beleaguered insurance giant is offloading its noncore assets in order to repay its $182bn (£117m) government bailout.

Weil previously advised AIG on the sale of its life insurance unit to MetLife for $15.5bn (£9.9bn) and in its deal last year with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to create special purpose vehicles that would hold key AIG units to position those units for sales or listings.

Skadden advised publicly traded fund Fortress, a longstanding client of the firm, with a team headed up by corporate partner Joseph Coco.

Davis Polk & Wardwell also took a role on the deal, advising the New York Federal Reserve, which must approve any deal.

AGF is one of the largest consumer lenders in the US, and provides home loans, personal loans, and other credit products. The unit has faced problems since the general credit downgrade for AIG made it difficult for AGF to obtain financing necessary to make and back loans.

The Am Law Daily is a blog on law.com, Legal Week's US sister title.