Hank Greenberg, the former CEO of AIG (NYSE: AIG), built the company from a modest insurance firm to one of the largest financial services businesses in the world. Then, Eliot Spitzer went after him and Greenberg was forced out. He has been trying to get back in ever since.
Through his own holdings and those of a foundation he controls, Greenberg has enough shares to make trouble for AIG, and now he may have cause. The company lost $7.8 billion in the last quarter. Greenberg insists that if he had been in charge, none of that would have happened.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Greenberg has "upped the pressure on current management in a sharply worded letter that said 'AIG is in crisis' and called on directors to postpone Wednesday's annual meeting."
Greenberg's view is somewhat convenient. The company started selling derivatives when he was still there. His attack on management assumes that he could have escaped the problems that have hit almost every major financial company in the US and Europe.
Greenberg dreams that things would have been different if he had stayed as CEO, but it is only a dream that he cannot support with any reality.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and the author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.
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