American International Group experienced its near-collapse and ultimate federal rescue in September 2008, coinciding with the peak of the global financial crisis. The company's massive financial products division, based in London, had engaged in writing catastrophic amounts of unregulated credit default swaps without holding adequate capital reserves. As the subprime mortgage market imploded, AIG faced an immediate liquidity crisis that threatened to freeze global credit markets, prompting the Federal Reserve to step in with an emergency $85 billion credit facility.