AIG's Greenberg Dismisses Health, Succession Concerns

By Daniel Hays

NU Online News Service, Feb. 25, 4:30 p.m., EST, New York City?Maurice Greenberg, the feisty head of American International Group, put questions about his health to rest today by appearing at a press conference to complain about government competition with private insurers in the aviation market.

Mr. Greenberg's physical state became an issue when he recently missed two expected public appearances amid questions as to whether he did or did not have the flu.

Because no named successor for the powerful 76-year-old AIG chairman and chief executive officer has been made public, news of his ill health were linked in some reports to a 3 percent drop in AIG shares last week.

Besides his health and government competition, Mr. Greenberg also discussed Enron issues as well as the impact of directors and officers insurance claims.

"I'm feeling terrific," Mr. Greenberg declared, complaining to The Financial Times that they had made it sound as if he "needed a pallbearer."

Mr. Greenberg two weeks ago missed a conference call with analysts, citing a case of the flu, and then did not appear last Wednesday at the Bermuda Insurance Symposium's conference of top level CEOs. "I decided I had other things to do. I gave them a week's notice," he said of the Bermuda trip. A top Symposium official had called his action "rude."

Mr. Greenberg, when asked whether AIG investors might be less influenced by the state of his health if they knew whom his successor might be, responded: "What's the rush?"

"Investors have to have confidence" that the company has a plan in place, he said. AIG's board, Mr. Greenberg said, will reveal the plan "when there's an appropriate time."

Mr. Greenberg's stated reason for meeting with reporters was to "rattle the cage a little bit" with the Federal Aviation Administration. He called on the FAA to stop providing airlines with terrorism "war risk" insurance in a staged withdrawal and allow private insurers to take over.

The FAA began providing airlines with war risk coverage 11 days after the Sept. 11 attacks involving four hijacked aircraft. Two days after the government action, AIG announced it had put together a group of insurers "willing to provide $950 million in coverage in excess of the $50 million available in the market."

According to a packet of information that AIG sent to the FAA, the company believes that if the FAA announces a full or transitional withdrawal, $1.5 billion to $2 billion in private coverage will become available in short order. If the government fails to move, however, "the long-term viability of the private market will be in question," according to AIG.

Mr. Greenberg took note of the fact that the United Kingdom is planning a phaseout of its war risk insurance program for airlines.

On the prospect of the government entering the reinsurance market for commercial terrorism insurance, Mr. Greenberg said that since no legislation to this effect was approved by Dec. 31, the likelihood of something passing "gets dimmer." He likened Congressional inaction to saying, "we don't need an army until we go to war."

Mr. Greenberg said remarks by AIG's senior vice chairman, Thomas Tizzio, last week when standing in for him at the Bermuda Insurance Symposium, that there could be big insurer losses from directors and officers coverage because of increasing numbers of stockholder suits, did not reflect AIG's liabilities in this market. He said the company was very sophisticated in its underwriting and has avoided a lot of underpriced D&O business.

Mr. Greenberg also addressed a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission in a probe of the PNC Financial Services Group. AIG helped PNC arrange structured finance deals. Mr. Greenberg said that "nothing was left off our books," and that PNC had cleared the transactions with their auditors "as far as I know."

Mr. Greenberg said that as a result of demands for more corporate information stemming from the Enron scandal, he had talked with analysts and agreed to meet with them on a quarterly rather than an annual basis.

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AIG's Greenberg Dismisses Health, Succession Concerns

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