Tidjane Thiam bid for AIA, the Asian wing of the crisis-stricken AIG. A public battle ensued, with some investors complaining about the $35.5 billion price Prudential was offering to pay. The bid eventually failed, after the AIG board rejected a revised lower bid. AIA was later floated on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the value of the company quickly rose above Prudential’s original bid price. Thiam came under strong personal criticism following the failure of the bid, partly as a result of the costs incurred by the company in pursuing the bid. However, he was re-elected as CEO at the May
Tidjane Thiam G20's High Level Panel on Infrastructure Investment. Established by the Seoul G20 summit in 2010, the panel was a grouping of figures from leading financial institutions and development agencies given the task of producing concrete proposals to encourage private sector investment in infrastructure projects in emerging economies. The panel submitted its report to the G20 Summit meeting in Cannes in November 2011. In 2013 Thiam was one of the authors of “A Partnership for the Future”, a report prepared at the request of the French Minister for the Economy and Finance by five French and Franco-African political and economic experts.