Goldman Sachs is behind AIG collapse
Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Hank Greenberg, former chief executive officer at American International Group Inc., said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is responsible for the collapse of the insurer during the economic crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“It certainly wouldn’t be difficult to come to that conclusion,” Greenberg is quoted as telling the newspaper yesterday.
Greenberg blamed new standards for credit-default swaps -- pushed by Goldman or Deutsche Bank AG, he said -- and subprime, housing-backed derivatives sold and then shorted by Goldman as contributing to AIG’s collapse, the newspaper reported.
“Mr. Greenberg appears to base his views on news reports rather than facts,” Lucas van Praag, a Goldman spokesman, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. “It is interesting that he doesn’t mention the devastating conclusions about AIG reached by the company’s own auditors.”
To contact the reporters responsible for this story: Sylvia Wier at swier@bloomberg.net; Vivek Shankar at vshankar3@bloomberg.net