Greenberg takes a fall for AIG’s “cooked books”
Another thing about Hank Greenberg’s management style was that he liked to keep Wall Street happy by cranking out 15% annual profit growth. AIG did this with amazing regularity and little variance. When asked how this was possible, Greenberg would give his questioner a penetrating look and inquire: “What do you want? Do you want steady growth? Or do you want up 60 percent one quarter and down 15 percent the next?” 14 Since few Wall Street analysts could penetrate deep into AIG’s labyrinth of subsidiaries, most assumed the firm’s performance was some combination of Greenberg’s continuing genius with a little bit of financial statement massaging to round off the edges