Too Big to Fail [311]
Removing Sullivan, installing Willumstad: Liam Pleven, Randall Smith, and Monica Langley, “AIG Ousts Sullivan, Taps Willumstad as Losses Mount,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2008.
in a small office in Shanghai: Shelp, Fallen Giant, 17–28, 153–60; Brian Bremner, “AIG’s Asian Connection; Can It Maintain Its Strong Growth in the Region?” BusinessWeek, September 15, 2003.
market value of $300 million: Carol J. Loomis, “AIG: Aggressive. Inscrutable. Greenberg,” Fortune, April 27, 1998.
with a market value of just under $80 billion: At the end of AIG’s second quarter (August 2008), it had over $1 trillion in assets and about $78 billion in shareholders equity. Matthew Karnitschnig, Liam Pleven, and Peter Lattman, “AIG Scrambles to Raise Cash, Talks to Fed,” Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2008.
Greenberg’s upbringing: Reports conflict on Greenberg’s age at the time of his father’s death. This author has chosen to go with the age listed in Shelp, Fallen Giant, 95–96.
Greenberg talked his way into a job as a $75-a-week insurance underwriting trainee: “On a whim, he wandered into the offices of Continental Casualty in lower Manhattan in 1953 and talked his way into the office of the personnel director. Greenberg thought the man was excessively rude, so he stormed into the office of a vice president and told him that Continental’s personnel director was a ‘jerk.’ He was rewarded with a job as a $75-a-week underwriting trainee. Before the end of the decade, he was Continental’s assistant vice president in charge of accident and health insurance.” See Devin Leonard, “Greenberg & Sons,” Fortune, February 21, 2005.
CV Starr’s story and AIG: Ibid.; Monica Langley, “Eastern Front: AIG and Fired Chief Greenberg Cross Paths Again—in China.” Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2005; Shelp, Fallen Giant, 95–102.
“Sit down, Gordon, and shut up”: Shelp, Fallen Giant, 104.
He drove himself relentlessly: Fortune reported that Greenberg installed a StairMaster on the corporate jet as well, to keep fit in flight. Leonard, “Greenberg & Sons,” Fortune.
He showed little affection for anyone: As he told Cindy Adams, “You learn fast who your friends are. Some I considered close became a lot less close. They separated quickly. Many you think loyal are suddenly not and you find out during adversity…. But Snowball gives me extra love. She sleeps with me. Puts her head on my shoulder.” Cindy Adams, “Ex-AIG Executive on Friends, Family,” New York Post, October 25, 2005.
Jeffrey, Evan Greenberg: Albert B. Crenshaw, “Another Son of CEO Leaves AIG,” Washington Post, September 20, 2000; Christopher Oster, “Uneasy Sits the Greenbergs’ Insurance Crown,” Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2004; Diane Brady, “Insurance and the Greenbergs, like Father like Sons,” BusinessWeek, March 1, 1999.
AIG agreed to pay $10 million: According to an SEC press release: “AIG developed and marketed a so-called ‘non-traditional’ insurance product for the stated purpose of ‘income statement smoothing,’ i.e., enabling a public reporting company to spread the recognition of known and quantified one-time losses over several future reporting periods…. AIG issued the purported insurance policy to Brightpoint for the purpose of assisting Brightpoint to conceal $11.9 million in losses that Brightpoint sustained in 1998.” U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, “AIG Agrees to Pay $10 Million Civil Penalty,” September 11, 2003. http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-111.htm.
AIG agreed to pay $126 million to settle: “In consenting to settle the Commission’s action and related, criminal charges, AIG has agreed to pay disgorgement, plus prejudgment interest, and penalties totaling $126,366,000.” Securities and Exchange Commission v. American International Group, Inc., Litigation Release No. 18985 / November 30, 2004. See http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr18985.htm.
“deferred-prosecution agreement”: Pamela H. Bucy, “Trends in Corporate Criminal Prosecutions Symposium: Corporate Criminality: Legal, Ethical,