Bailed-out U.S. insurer American International Group plans to file a prospectus for a multibillion-dollar IPO of its Asian life insurance unit before Christmas, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The Hong Kong IPO of American International Assurance is expected to raise $10 billion to $20 billion, the paper said.

AIA and its advisers are working round the clock to submit the filing before Christmas, the paper quoted a person familiar with the matter as saying. Nobody involved wants this to hang around for much longer.

Filing a draft prospectus with stock exchange authorities before Christmas would trigger a formal three-month process that would set a path for a listing in the second quarter of 2010, the paper said.

AIG has appointed Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley as its joint global coordinators of the IPO, which will generate huge fees for the banks involved.

Goldman Sachs and Citigroup , which both advised on an aborted sale of AIA earlier this year, have emerged as front runners for more junior book-runner positions, along with Credit Suisse , the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the situation.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Gary Hill)

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