What does American International Group AIG do?

The history of AIG's fortune

Incredible success

This is a set of amazing figures: annual profits of US$9.3 billion, shareholders' equity of US$82.8 billion, Revenue is US$81.3 billion and total assets are US$678.3 billion. This is American International Group (AIG), founded in Shanghai in 1919 and currently headquartered in New York. It is the largest industrial and commercial insurance institution in the United States and is involved in insurance, pension management services, and financial services. Its second CEO, Hank Greenberg, who was arrogant in the American insurance industry, was a charismatic man. His perseverance, impatience, strong willpower, and tirelessness were clearly evident in him.

He has been the CEO of AIG for 37 years and has worked at AIG for 45 years. During his tenure, he allowed AIG's market value to soar to a peak of $173 billion, and earnings per share increased by an average of 17% per year. We can always see Greenberg's seemingly invincible and amiable smile from the promotional posters of the American AIA Insurance Company.

Greenberg came from a humble background. His father opened a candy store in East New York, but he died when Hank was 5 years old. His mother remarried an upstate New York rancher, and his childhood memories are filled with milking cows before dawn and trapping muskrats and mink. Greenberg used a forged birth certificate to enlist in the Army in 1942, when he was 17 years old. He fought in World War II and served in the European and Korean theaters, nearly dying on several occasions. And he never gave up his pursuit of knowledge. After earning a high school degree, he attended the University of Miami and eventually graduated from New York Law School.

In 1953, by chance, he had a quarrel with an employee supervisor at the European Casualty Claims Office in Manhattan, which laid the foundation for his future career. Greenberg thought the man was too rude, and he yelled furiously in the vice president's office, calling the European employee supervisor a "crazy guy." Surprisingly, he got a job as a new employee in the insurance industry with a weekly salary of $75. Ten years later, he became the company's assistant vice president in charge of accident and health insurance.

In 1960, Greenberg was poached by Cornelius Vander Starr, another company in the insurance industry, the predecessor of AIG. Starr, a 27-year-old Californian, established a small insurance office in Shanghai, China in 1919. It was also the first foreign-funded insurance company to provide insurance services to Chinese people that year. He achieved great success in China, and his business soon expanded to Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. But in the United States, Starr's business has been delayed. He bought companies with large sales and sold insurance to citizens and small companies, but still had no success. So he pinned his hopes on Greenberg.

Greenberg abandoned the traditional model and chose a sales model similar to that of a brokerage company, accepting companies as members. When Starr's heart began to fail in 1968, and when he died, he named Greenberg his heir. A year after Greenberg took over, AIG went public with a market capitalization of $300 million.

He sees himself as a game rebel in the dreary industry of insurance. In the 1960s, when people generally believed that the insurance industry should not expect any innovation, Greenberg believed that "innovation can be done." AIG began to attract the market's attention by providing conditional protection for non-traditional risks and focusing on deductibles. Since then, AIG's new insurance businesses have been continuously explored - among them, quite innovative ones include Internet identity theft insurance, aircraft hijacking insurance, and offshore oil field insurance. It also launched hacker insurance business in 2003 ahead of its peers.

At that time, most Internet companies believed that their company's protective measures were good enough and they did not need to spend extra money for insurance. AIG's hacker insurance business was also quite coldly received when it was first launched. But when a series of well-known websites such as Yahoo, Amazon and eBay were attacked by hackers at the end of 2003, the Internet insurance business immediately became popular, and AIG's insurance business increased four to five times that month.

AIG's product innovation capabilities won Greenberg great reputation and became an important factor in promoting AIG's rapid expansion. Peter Eastwood, a top executive at AIG, once commented on its ability to innovate, “We spend a lot of time with our brokers and customers, asking them directly what they care about, what they face, and what their existing problems are. The shortcomings of the insurance market...we have established a dominant position in many areas through this."

In order to promote these insurance products of AIG to every corner of the world, Greenberg expanded its operating network all over the world. AIG's member companies have reached more than 130 countries and regions around the world through a variety of sales channels. Greenberg spent a lot of time traveling around the world and signed many important agreements. A former AIG executive said, "I have been to China 48 times in the past 10 years. How many company executives can exceed my number of visits?"

On AIG's website The slogan "We know money" was once hung. Perhaps, for AIG, money is just a numbers game they play. Looking at AIG's territory, you have to marvel at Greenberg's huge ambition.

AIG Group has four major businesses. General insurance and life insurance are the two largest and longest-standing businesses. The two major businesses of financial services, pension services and asset management are also growing steadily.

AIG has representative companies in every major market. The principal general insurance subsidiaries are American Home Insurance Company, New Hampshire Insurance Company, National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a number of their affiliates. In the field of life insurance, AIG, American International Reinsurance, American International Guaranty Company (Bermuda), China Taiwan Nanshan Life Insurance, AIG Star Life Insurance, AIG Pension Insurance Company, AIG American General Life Insurance Company and SunAmerica Life Company are all included in the pockets of AIG , with millions of customers around the world. International Financial Leasing Corporation, AIG Financial Products and its affiliates, and GE Capital and its affiliates are all financial services companies of AIG. It mainly provides aviation insurance, capital markets, customer finance and premium finance. The pension savings and asset management business is conducted by Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, AIG SunAmerica Asset Management Company, AIG SunAmerica Life Insurance Company, AIG Global Asset Management Group and affiliated companies or related companies, providing customers with professional stocks, fixed income securities, Real estate and other investment management services.

In the 2003 report, Greenberg pointed out that AIG's leadership position comes from its underwriting capabilities, insurance product innovation capabilities, financial capabilities, excellent services and processing capabilities. AIG achieves its global leadership position through affiliates in more than 130 countries.

Greenberg has a strong sense of manipulation and business acumen, and his skills in playing with money and legal rules are extremely proficient. He gained a combative reputation over the years as he battled with rivals and regulators. He is familiar with the rules of Wall Street. Someone once commented, "He can do anything for the price of the stock."

A Wall Street person who has dealt with Greenberg for a long time said of him: "Even the sound of a stone falling in the company cannot escape his ears." His internal audit of the company has reached a fever pitch state, specifically hiring 100 people to find AIG's wrong practices. Their opinions go directly to the top of the company and require an immediate response from everyone. In addition, Greenberg spends 50 hours each fall convening 25 different agencies for budget meetings, each of which is required to bring its business plan. The chief financial officer, CFO Howard Smith, must read these business materials accurately according to his regulations.

A college classmate of Greenberg commented on him: "He works almost 24 hours a day, maybe more, 36 hours. But he likes it."

Looking at AIG It is Greenberg's obsessive work attitude and ambition to "meet all requirements of all people in the widest range of fields" that have propelled AIG to become the largest commercial insurance company in the United States and one of the financial groups with the largest market value in the world. He set up complex ownership structures and corporate governance mechanisms, and created many dazzling new insurance products. Now it seems that these much-talked-about and enviable financial skills have also become his way to control companies, plunder wealth, and evade supervision. tools.