Former AIG CEO Greenberg Plans to Sell Some AIG Stock

September 26, 2008

Former American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Maurice “Hank” Greenberg intends to sell some AIG stock, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.

Greenberg, who ran AIG for nearly four decades, said he will sell stock in the open market, and the sales may “materially” decrease the holdings he controls.

Sales will be made for liquidity and other purposes, according to the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Greenberg, through a personal stake, family trust and companies that he controls, owns roughly 11 percent of AIG’s stock, making him its largest shareholder before AIG agreed to a federal bailout that will give the government 80 percent ownership.

Greenberg’s spokesman was not immediately available for further comment.

The block of stock that Greenberg controls has shrunk dramatically in value — from roughly $20 billion when he left the insurer in 2005 to about $1 billion, based on Wednesday’s closing price of $3.31 a share.

AIG shares were trading up as much as 30 percent earlier on Thursday, but had substantially trimmed those gains by mid-afternoon. The shares were up 6 percent at $3.51.

The shares have traded as high as $70.13 in the last year, and as low as $1.25 in the hours before AIG agreed to the federal bailout on Sept. 16, as it sought to avert its collapse under mounting mortgage losses.

(Reporting by Lilla Zuill, editing by Richard Chang and Gerald E. McCormick)
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