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Life Health > Health Insurance

Greenberg Views China Operations As Legacy

By Jim Connolly

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NU Online News Service, April 30, 2003, 10:22 a.m. EDT — New York

Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, chairman of American International Group Inc., New York, told insurance analysts here that he believes one of the greatest legacies he will leave AIG will be the company’s expanded presence in China.

The Chinese operations will be important to helping AIG meet its earnings targets, Greenberg said at a financial services conference organized by the New York office of UBS Warburg.

“Right now,” he said, “we have all the business we can handle in the parts of China we want to be in.”

Although AIG is starting in the eastern, coastal areas of China, the company does want more of a presence in western China, Greenberg said.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome has scared some executives away from Asia, but Greenberg said the SARS outbreak might help life insurance sales.

“I hate to say that we will benefit from SARS,” Greenberg said. But he added that SARS “is a wake-up call for the need for protection.”

The outbreak could boost first-year sales in some Asian countries by helping agents justify the need for protection as well as savings products, Greenberg said.

Greenberg is much less interested in Europe than in Asia.

Because the social contract is so different in Europe, it is “very difficult to organize a company there and slim it down,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg also told the analysts that, for the time being, he is here to stay.

He listed three things could bring about his retirement: “I don’t want to do it anymore, my health is terrible or the board tells me to leave.” When pressed about his successor, he said that he will not reveal the name of that individual until the board instructs him to do so.

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