Insurance Australia Group announced yesterday that it had repurchased 36 million pounds of its sterling denominated subordinated debt at a 30 per cent discount to face value. This follows the repurchase of 108 million pounds of subordinated debt in February. The total cash outlay was 101 million pounds. The company will report pre-tax profit of $93 million from these transactions.IAG is the second company in as many days to repurchase a large chunk of subordinated debt. Macquarie Group notified the Luxemburg Stock Exchange that it would offer to buy US$340 million of subordinated debt listed on that market. Macquarie did not comment yesterday but it is understood to have offered between US50 and US60 cents on bonds that were trading at US35 cents. The offer closes on Wednesday and Macquarie will notify the exchange of the outcome on Friday.The Macquarie debt has a maturity date of September 2015 and a call date of September 2010. Macquarie has been one of the main beneficiaries of the government guarantee, raising around $14 billion of guaranteed wholesale deposits. There are no restrictions on how those funds are used.