The Obama administration's pay czar said on Wednesday that renegotiating guaranteed bonus contracts at American International Group's AIG Financial Products unit was a top priority for him in 2010.

Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. Treasury bailout program's special master for compensation practices, told the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he believes renegotiation of such contracts will not cause large numbers of executives to leave the seven bailed out firms under his purview.

Feinberg said he took pains to retain key employees in his rulings on pay at the seven firms, and added that the lure of giving up cash for company stock that has a potentially higher value in the future would keep many top earners on the job.

I think that if you look at at the levels of total compensation that we established in our determination, we figured -- I made this recommendation from my conclusion -- they won't jump ship, Feinberg told the committee.

(Reporting by David Lawder, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

New york city Aig