AIG’s largest shareholder and its chief executive from 1967 to 2005, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, blames the now bankrupt insurance company’s board of directors for its demise.
Greenberg, whose personal losses tally more than $17 billion, has been an outspoken critic of the company’s management since he stepped down three years ago, according to ABC News.
“After I left the company, all the risk management procedures that we had in place were obviously dismantled,” he told ABC. “I can’t explain that. There was a new board of directors. One should be asking that board of directors what they did and why.”
According to an unidentified source, one board member described Greenberg as bitter, accused him of lying, and called his most recent comments “unadulterated nonsense.”
Ron Shelp, a former AIG executive who wrote a history of the company titled Fallen Giant published in 2006 and occupied an office down the hall from Greenberg at AIG for more than a decade, said he believed the company began investing in credit swaps tied to mortgages while Greenberg was still in charge, the television network reported.