Greenberg: 'I was angry' about losing AIG CEO job

NEW YORK -- Former American International Group CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg acknowledged on Wednesday he was angry about losing his job in 2005, but defended taking over a retirement bonus fund that AIG is trying to recover in federal court.

"Yes, I was angry," said Greenberg, responding to a question from AIG's lawyer Theodore Wells.

Wells argued earlier this week that Greenberg, through his private firm Starr International, raided an AIG retirement program holding $4.3 billion in stock because he was mad about getting ousted in March 2005.

Greenberg, 84, built AIG over 35 years from a small insurer into the world's largest but was forced to retire amid investigations of accounting irregularities. Starr, the company that controlled the retirement fund in question since its creation, remained AIG's largest shareholder until the government bailed out the insurer last year.

Greenberg and Starr's lawyers say the shares belonged to Starr.

In July 2005, at the same time Greenberg stepped down as chairman of AIG, Greenberg and Starr's other voting shareholders restated the purpose of the fund. In a memo that Wells presented in court on Wednesday, Starr's shareholders said they rescinded previously stated purposes of the fund and reaffirmed the fund's "ultimate purpose" as a charitable trust.

Wells asked Greenberg on Wednesday if he informed the hundreds of retirement plan participants of the fund's restated purpose.

"I don't think we had an obligation to tell them that," Greenberg said.

Wells also played a video of Greenberg in 2000 telling retirement plan participants at the time that there were "sufficient shares in the trust for a couple hundred of years."

"It's a motivating speech," Greenberg told jurors. He said the participants in attendance would have known that "a couple hundred years is an exaggeration, obviously."

"No company can plan 200 years in advance," he said. "You're lucky if you can plan five years in advance."

Greenberg appeared mostly solemn and composed during Wells' examination, but he raised his voice when Wells brought up "a couple hundred years" again: "It was a figure of speech," Greenberg said, leaning forward in his chair.