At AIG: What would Hank do? Posted on March 26th
“There is no way on God’s green earth that any of this would have happened on Hank’s watch,” says Sean Sweeney.
An executive recuriter at Bonifield Associates in Mount Laurel, Sweeney used to place people at AIG during the second half of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg’s 30-year term as AIG’s chief executive. Yes, he was a believer: ”The man watched every department and subsidiary with a passion.”
Doesn’t that make it at least partly Greenberg’s fault that his hand-picked successors wrecked his hand-built machine after he was forced out following a series of probes, not least by discredited NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer? “I have for years described AIG as a one-eyed octopus, and that one eye was Hank. When he left, it became blind,” Sweeney said. “Maybe it is impossible for one person to control such a mammoth institution… We will never know.”
Plus, Greenberg get AIG involved way too deep with subprime lending, including through its Fort Washington-based Wilmington Finance subsidiary? ”They were handing out money like government cheese,” Sweeney agreed. ”But isn’t that what the Feds (wanted)?.. Now they’re pulling back and rebranding, and selling at fire-sale prices. It’s like when Esso became Exxon.”