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AIG rebump...

thanks kcvl

To: Cincinatus’ Wife
October 26, 1998
New York Islanders owners Steven Gluckstern and Howard Milstein, embroiled in similar battle with SMG over their lease at Nassau Coliseum, are reportedly considering filing Chapter 7 and liquidating their interest in the team, in which case the franchise could end up being run by the league. Both sets of owners are ultimately seeking new publicly funded arenas.

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How did AIG use insurance contracts to sell accounting fraud?

Steven Gluckstern and Michael Palm figured out how to minimize insurers’ risk and give customers an accounting edge and a tax break: Multiyear contracts in which the premiums covered most if not all of the potential losses — but refunded much of the unclaimed money at the end of the contract. Buyers loved the policies because they could offset losses with loan-like proceeds without disclosing liabilities that would muddy their bottom lines. And the premiums were tax deductible. Such policies became among the industry’s hottest products. Now, two decades later, they are the focus of multiple state and federal investigations into companies suspected of using them to manipulate earnings. And this week, those probes helped topple Mr. Greenberg as chief executive, although he will remain chairman. His company sold one policy later declared a sham by federal authorities and itself bought another — now the focus of intense scrutiny — from Berkshire Hathaway Inc., where Messrs. Gluckstern and Palm got their start. “If used improperly, these contracts can enable a company to conceal the bottom-line impact of a loss and thus misrepresent its financial results,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Mark Schonfeld, who is overseeing the agency’s probe of such policies as the head of its Northeast office.

March 5, 1999
Capital Z is run by partner Steven Gluckstern, the CEO of Zurich Reinsurance (North America), Inc., the principal underwriting affiliate of the Zurich Group in the North American market for property and casualty reinsurance. Gluckstern also made recent headlines locally by acquiring the troubled New York Islanders hockey franchise

40 posted on Sunday, August 07, 2005 4:39:42 AM by kcvl
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