Business Strategies: how to diminish your brand's reputation

There will be many business owners who think they are having a hard time and so a day at a spa would provide them both physical and mental recovery.

But there are not many who will head for the very expensive (they like to call it "exclusive" but that's based on keeping out people who cannot - or who elect not - to pay the extraordinary prices charged) St Regis, Monarch Beach, California.

But then again, there are not many company executives who have just been given USD85 milliard by the government to keep their company afloat after a series of disastrous decisions.

Yet that's what a team of AIG executives did less than a week after the government effectively nationalised their company.

And that spa bill? USD23,380 for massage, facials, pedicures and manicures as part of a total bill of approximately USD440,000.

Former AIG CEO Robert Willumstad told the Congressional committee that he did not know the "conference" was scheduled and had he known about it, he would have stopped it. A spokesman for the company later said that it had been planned for a year, and it was a reward for the company's "top 5 to 10% of top sellers." It is "very standard in the industry," the spokesman said.

And some in the industry saw it as a good thing - and surprisingly, that included a regulator. Eric Dinallo is the New York State Insurance Superintendant. Basically, he told the committee, that it was essential that AIG retained its top sales people at a time of such uncertainty and that it may well prove to have been money well spent.

There were 60 rooms over an eight day period. And it's the food and bar bills that are most astounding: about USD160,000 including room service accounts. The "Presidential Suite" was used for five nights. The hotel had the audacity to charge "no show" fees of more than USD1,000.

Yesterday, whilst AIG was being examined in the Congressional Committee, further bail-out money was provided.