Manchester United sponsor AIG ‘insures 75 of the top 100 Irish firms’

THIS side of the Atlantic AIG, the giant general insurer, is best know to thousands of soccer fans as the logo on the Man United soccer strip.

But it is much more than that. In Britain alone it writes about 12 million policies annually and it has offices in 130 countries.

In Ireland, it accounts for about 4.5% of the Irish market, but it claims to have 75 of the top 100 firms on its books.

Its policies are wide ranging from home insurance to car cover which is provided in Ireland though AA.

It also offers accident, health and life insurance to individuals.

As the corporate level it provides cover on business properties, employers liability as well as fund management and other investment service.

About 200 people are employed here. It has offices in nearly 130 countries and employs 116,000 globally, nearly four times the amount at the collapsed Lehman Brothers.

It is in effect one of the leading US based international insurance and financial services organisations.

It provides a wide range of commercial, personal and life insurance products through a variety of distribution channels.

Its global businesses includes financial services and asset management, including aircraft leasing, financial products, trading and market making, consumer finance, institutional, retail and direct investment fund asset management, real estate investment management, and retirement savings products.

It is ranked as the 18th largest company in the world and was founded in 1919, by Cornelius Vander Starr, an American.

Starr set up the business in Shanghai, the first Westerner to do so and then took the business to Europe, the Middle East and South America.

In 1968 he passed the business on to Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, a D-Day veteran who saw the company through a phase of dynamic expansion including high risk areas such as kidnap and ransom coverage.

For almost 40 years Greenberg dominated the group before resigning under a cloud in 2005, having been accused of exaggerating the group’s operating performance.

His successor was Essex boy Martin Sullivan who joined the firm in London as a lowly clerk back in 1970. Sullivan’s timing could not have been worse as the tsunami struck in Asia and a succession of hurricanes and other disasters seriously undermined the group’s capital base.

Today it needs €53 billion to shore up its capital base while Man United has been left scratching around for a new sponsor to replace the €60m four year deal it had with AIG.

The group’s variety of assets included Stowe Mountain ski resort in Vermont, several US ports and a stake in London City Airport, previously owned by Dermot Desmond.

Its assets worldwide are estimated at over €630bn.