Insurance Industry's First Family Fades
And then there was one.
Six months ago Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg and two of his sons ran a trio of the largest outfits in the insurance industry and were the business's first family. But New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's widening investigation into fraud in the insurance business has left Hank's son Evan, chief executive of Bermuda-based insurer ACE Ltd., as the last Greenberg standing as CEO.
Hank Greenberg, the imperial 79-year-old chief executive at American International Group Inc. for nearly four decades, retired from his post as CEO last night amid a flurry of regulatory inquiries, remaining as chairman. Last fall, Evan's older brother Jeffrey quit as chief executive of Marsh & McLennan Cos., days after Mr. Spitzer accused the company's insurance brokerage of bid rigging. When he unveiled the Oct. 14 civil-fraud suit against Marsh, Mr. Spitzer all but called for Jeffrey Greenberg's head.
Stepping down would likely lighten the regulatory pressure on Hank Greenberg, according to people familiar with the matter. There are no current investigations focusing on Jeffrey or Evan, these people say.
Hank Greenberg's retirement as CEO marks a startling reversal of fortune for the family and its patriarch. "It's sad," says David Schiff, the New York-based editor of Schiff's Insurance Observer since the late 1980s. Hank Greenberg has "been the most important figure in the insurance business over the past 40 years."
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It also strikes some as ironic that Evan Greenberg, a college dropout who initially didn't show much interest in business, ended up as the sole survivor. "Who would've thought that?" asks Jeff Arricale , an analyst with T. Rowe Price Group in Baltimore. "It's just not what you would've guessed given the pedigree of the father and elder son." Jeffrey Greenberg, by contrast, graduated from Brown University, received a law degree from Georgetown University and swiftly rose through the ranks of the insurance world.
Hank Greenberg was named AIG's president in 1967, when the company with Asian roots had a modest business in the U.S. Today it is the nation's largest insurer, with a $169 billion stock-market value that ranks among the 10 largest U.S. companies.
Along the way Mr. Greenberg, a veteran of the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the Korean War, earned a reputation as an aggressive competitor who often took on regulators and rivals and kept a tight rein on the company. Colleagues say he carries several briefcases full of company papers when he travels and routinely calls employees with detailed questions about contracts and other minutiae.
Both Jeffrey, 53, and Evan, 50, learned about the business from their father while working at AIG. Former colleagues said the elder Mr. Greenberg held his sons to higher standards than he did other executives. Mr. Greenberg's sons bristled under the weight of his expectations and the lack of a succession plan.
Jeffrey Greenberg left AIG in 1995; Evan left in 2000. Neither announced their next move at the time. Jeffrey was named chief executive of Marsh in 1999; Evan became chief executive of ACE in May.
Their father's retirement was triggered partly by investigations by state and federal regulators of AIG's sale and possible use of insurance contracts that may have helped corporate buyers manipulate their reported earnings. Meantime, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan have been investigating whether Mr. Greenberg tried to influence his company's share price in the final stages of an acquisition in 2001.
Since Mr. Spitzer sued Marsh, investors have shaved a collective $15 billion in market value from the companies run by the three men, leaving the combined total market capitalization at about $194 billion. Mr. Spitzer's office declined to comment on the investigations, and none of the three men could be reached for comment. Marsh has settled the bid-rigging case for $850 million.
People who have worked with the Greenbergs have said relations among the men have become strained. As head of ACE, Evan runs an AIG competitor. ACE and AIG cooperated in the bid-rigging investigation that cost Jeffrey his job.
Still, one person who knows the men says that talk is overblown. Hank speaks with both sons and the two brothers get along, this person says. Last year, in the midst of the bid-rigging scandal at Marsh, the three men gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving, this person says.
保险业第一豪门风光不再
现在只有一位了。
6个月前，莫利斯?格林伯格(Maurice R. Hank Greenberg)和他的两个儿子还分别管理著美国保险业中最大的三家公司，可谓保险业第一豪门。但纽约州司法部长斯皮策(Eliot Spitzer)扩大对保险业务欺诈范围的调查使担任ACE Ltd首席执行长的格林伯格的儿子埃文(Evan)成为其家族最后一个担任首席执行长一职的人。
在面临诸多监管调查的情况下，79岁的莫利斯?格林伯格周一决定辞去美国国际集团(American International Group Inc.)的首席执行长，但仍将继续担任董事长。去年秋季，就在斯皮策指控Marsh & McLennan Cos.在保险经纪中涉嫌操纵投标几天后，埃文的哥哥杰弗里(Jeffrey)辞去了该公司的首席执行长职务。斯皮策去年10月14日对Marsh提起民事诉讼，这几乎就是在要求杰弗里引咎辞职。
知情人士透露，离职可能会减小莫利斯?格林伯格面临的监管压力。这些人士称，目前没有针对杰弗里或埃文的调查。
莫利斯?格林伯格的辞职标志著该家族的命运出现了令人惊讶的逆转。自上世纪80年代以来一直担任Schiff's Insurance Observer的编辑大卫?希夫(David Schiff)称，这令人感到难过。在过去的40年中，莫利斯?格林伯格一直是保险业中最举足轻重的人物。
具有讽刺意味的是，从大学中途退学的埃文最初对进入商界并不怎么感兴趣，但现在却是唯一的幸存者。T. Rowe Price Group的分析师杰夫?阿里卡莱(Jeff Arricale)说，的确难以料到这点，从父亲和哥哥的成长道路上确实无法推测出这种结果。杰弗里毕业于布朗大学(Brown University)，还曾获得乔治敦大学(Georgetown University)的法学学位，并在保险业中的地位扶摇直上。
莫利斯?格林伯格1967年被任命为美国国际集团的总裁，当时这家从亚洲起家的公司在美国的业务规模并不大。现在，该公司已经是美国最大的保险商，市值高达1,690亿美元，位居美国10家最大的公司之列。
格林伯格是一个咄咄逼人的竞争对手，对监管机构和竞争者常常盛气凌人，并严格控制著这家公司。同事称，他在出差时经常携带几个装满文件的皮箱，对合同和会议纪要方面的细节问题经常打电话给手下。
现年53岁的杰弗里和50岁的埃文都是在美国国际集团工作时从他们父亲那里学到的商业经验。前同事称，格林伯格对两个儿子的要求比其他管理人员更为严格。两个儿子对父亲过高的期望和缺乏继承人计划心存芥蒂。
杰弗里和埃文先后于1995年和2000年离开了美国国际集团。两个人离开时都没有宣布今后的去向。杰弗里在1999年被任命为Marsh的首席执行长；埃文则在2000年5月走马上任ACE的首席执行长。
莫利斯?格林伯格辞职的原因之一在于纽约州及联邦监管机构正在调查美国国际集团的销售行为和可能采用保险合同帮助企业购买人粉饰账面的做法。与此同时，美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission)和曼哈顿的美国联邦检察官办公室也在对格林伯格2001年在收购的最后阶段是否试图影响股价展开调查。
自斯皮策开始起诉Marsh以来，这三人所管理的三家公司已总计损失了150亿美元市值，使其总市值缩水至1,940亿美元左右。斯皮策办公室对这些调查不予置评，记者也无法联系到这三人发表评论。Marsh已经以8.50亿美元和解了投标欺诈指控。
曾与这三人共事过的人士表示，这三人关系紧张。作为首席执行长，埃文管理的ACE是美国国际集团的竞争对手。ACE和美国国际集团配合了有关投标欺诈的调查，而杰弗里则丢掉了工作。
但一位了解这三人关系的人士称，上述言论夸大其词了。他说，莫利斯?格林伯格同两个儿子都没有不理不睬，两个兄弟之间也相处不错。这位人士称，去年，在Marsh的投标欺诈丑闻风头正劲时，这三人还在一起度过了感恩节。
