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As it struggles to sell or spin off its varied businesses, American International Group Inc. (AIG) is also struggling to retain customers amid public anger over retention bonuses it paid to some employees after the company took billions in government aid.

But negotiations are moving forward over a resolution of its aircraft leasing business International Lease Finance Corp. and its stake in Transatlantic Re, said Pauls Rosput Reynolds, AIG's chief restructuring officer, during the company's first quarter conference call Thursday.

David Herzog, AIG's chief financial officer, said that customer retention slipped around the time of public hearings over bonuses AIG paid to executives in its loss-plagued Financial Products unit, but had since improved.

AIG posted its lowest loss in six quarters, reporting a $4.4 billion deficit in the first quarter that reflected ongoing hits to its investments and stiff challenges facing its insurance companies.

Leading up to Thursday, AIG had posted five consecutive quarterly losses totaling more than $100 billion since its last profitable period, the third quarter of 2007. Each one of those five prior losses had topped $5 billion, with the largest, nearly $62 billion, coming in the fourth quarter of last year. The latest results included $1.9 billion in charges tied to the wind down of the Financial Products group, whose problems pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy, and $2.5 billion in investment losses. Operating income at AIG's general-insurance business dropped by 72% amid investment losses, while life-insurance and retirement-services profits dropped to $1.2 billion amid lower assets under management and losses on partnership investments. The government rescued AIG last September, and has committed up to $173.3 billion to the bailout. Taxpayers got a nearly 80% stake in the company in exchange. Shares of AIG traded down 2% in aftermarket trading at $1.91 a share.

-By Lavonne Kuykendall, Dow Jones Newswires; (312) 750 4141; lavonne.kuykendall@dowjones.com

(Liam Pleven and Lauren Pollock contributed to this report.)