Some top employees of American International Group Inc's Financial Products group have agreed to return retention bonuses after mounting public outrage over the $165 million payout, the Wall Street Journal said.

Poling is an executive vice-president with responsibility for energy and infrastructure investments, the paper said. Poling is one of the roughly 418 current and former employees from AIG's financial-products unit who received bonus payments, it said.

AIG could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.

AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy said on Wednesday that he had asked employees receiving more than $100,000 in bonuses to repay at least half.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore, editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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