Some of you may remember when and gave his bonus to charity.
It sounded a little like a self-serving PR event at the time, but it did put AIG in a less evil light. Insurance giant AIG is trying to seize a $490 million charitable endowment — and claw back $27 million it already awarded to New York charities — to pay executive bonuses, The Post has learned. It appears that $180 Billion in taxpayer money just isn’t enough for some people. The endowment, called Starr International Foundation, is run by former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, and has given millions to the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, Citymeals and other local groups. At issue is a legal conundrum that started in the 1970s, when Greenberg was building AIG into the world’s largest insurance empire, and wanted a way to reward his executives off the books. He and several co-founders set up their own offshore piggy bank — unaffiliated with AIG ownership — and seeded it with their own stock shares that would pay dividends and build up nest eggs and bonuses for retiring executives. The separate company, Starr International Co., worked well for decades. But in 2005, Greenberg was pushed out of AIG in a boardroom coup, foreshadowing AIG’s collapse.
Greenberg closed his piggy bank for any future bonuses beyond 2005, though AIG executives who had vested by that point can collect when they turn 65.