AIG (AIG): Methusela Pays A Visit

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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AIG’s (AIG) ancient former CEO Hank Greenberg is not happy with how the place is run. He shouldn’t be, but neither should any of the company’s shareholders. The stock is off 10% over the last two year against an almost 30% improvement in the S&P.

Of course, Greenberg, now well into his 80s was booted because of an accounting scandal at the firm where he was CEO from 1967 until two years ago. The Feds are still looking into the matter.

In the meantime, Greenberg controls trusts and foundations that control 13.6% of AIG’s shares. He has filed with the SEC seeking changes at the company because he "believes that there are opportunities to significantly improve [AIG’s] performance and strategic direction, as well as the value of their investment."

According to The Wall Street Journal, Greenberg "have not made any decisions regarding their future intentions.". Read that to mean that he intends to bully that AIG board through suits or a proxy fight to get the price of the shares up. This might come through selling off assets, increasing the dividend, of buying back shares.

Instead of playing shuffle board on the Queen Mary II, Greenberg is trying to get the stock price up at his old company. And, he probably will

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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