The New York branch of the Federal Reserve said Thursday that it had sold around $7.01bn in mortgage-backed securities that it had acquired from AIG as part of the US government's bailout of the nearly collapsed insurer that commenced in September 2008. Crédit Suisse made the unspecified winning bid for the securities in a "competitive process" that the Fed said it convened in the wake of Goldman Sachs' unsolicited offer for a share of the securities earlier this month. Other participants in the auction included Goldman, Barclays Capital, and Bank of America's Merrill Lynch broker-dealer unit, the Fed said. The New York Fed has been holding the AIG assets in Maiden Lane II (ML II), the special purpose vehicle established as part of the bailout. Maiden Lane once held around $30bn of securities assumed from AIG. "This transaction substantially reduces the ML II portfolio and loan at a desirable price", the Fed said in a statement. New York Fed president William Dudley expressed pleasure with "the strength of the bids and the level of market interest in these assets". The Fed started selling Maiden Lane II's holdings earlier this year but halted sales in June owing to tumbling prices and the unsettling of markets caused by the eurozone debt crisis.