NEW YORK (Bloomberg) American International Group Inc., the insurer selling assets to repay a US bailout, told regulators it was offered as much as $3 billion for its Taiwan-based unit Nan Shan Life Insurance Co.“Prospective buyers have approached AIG and have provided unsolicited letters of interest in purchasing Nan Shan at prices that range from $2.15 billion to $3 billion,” the New York- based insurer said in a November 12 letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission that was released yesterday by the regulator. AIG didn't name the bidders in the letter.Cathay Financial Holding Co and Fubon Financial Holding Co, which own Taiwan's two biggest insurers, are among bidders seeking AIG's four million customers and more than 500 outlets on the island. AIG disclosed the bidding interest in response to SEC queries after Taiwan regulators blocked a $2.15 billion sale in August.“The priority for AIG now is to sell non-core assets to raise funds to repay the Treasury and to exit the Taiwan insurance market, which is lossmaking,” said Stanley Tsai, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods Asia. “Taiwan is overbanked and the insurance industry is over-serviced. A lot of foreign insurers have exited the Taiwan market.”Taiwan Secom Co said yesterday it plans to form a group with Goldsun Development & Construction Co and Primus Financial Holdings Ltd to bid for Nan Shan Cathay Financial, Chinatrust Financial Holding Co, Fubon Financial and a group led by Ruentex Group submitted bids for Nan Shan on December 3.AIG's plan to sell the unit stalled when Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission on August 31 rejected a $2.15 billion bid by a group led by Primus Financial and China Strategic Holdings Ltd., citing concerns over their financial capability and long- term commitment. The SEC asked AIG on November 10 to justify a filing in which the company projected the eventual sale amount would approximate the sum from the failed deal.“AIG prefers to sell the whole Taiwan unit rather than to have a strategic investor which may want to list Nan Shan in Taiwan, which is what the latest Secom-Primus group seems to be aiming for,” Tsai said.Nan Shan had total assets of NT$1.7 trillion ($58 billion) as of the end of October, according to data from the company's website. Huang Tien-mu, director-general of the insurance bureau at Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission, declined to comment when reached in his office.AIG said on November 5 that it expected the unit to be sold within 12 months.AIG chief executive officer Robert Benmosche, 66, divested a majority stake in AIA Group Ltd. in October for $20.5 billion and sold a Japanese unit last month to MetLife Inc for $16.2 billion. AIG, once the world's largest insurer, is focusing on global property-casualty and US life businesses as it repays a $182.3 billion bailout.“AIG remains committed to the divestiture of Nan Shan, consistent with its strategy to continue to grow its core domestic life and global general insurance subsidiaries,” AIG told the SEC in the letter, which was signed by deputy general counsel Kathleen Shannon.AIG struck a deal in December to repay the Federal Reserve, the regulator that first bailed out the insurer in 2008. The insurer has said it would focus on retiring obligations to the US Treasury Department after repaying the Fed.