At American International Group Inc.'s (NYSE:AIG) first annual meeting since its meltdown and taxpayer bailout in September 2008, it was hard to ignore the overwhelming level of security in what appeared to be an effort to protect AIG's top brass from a seething public. One would have thought that President Obama himself was addressing the audience of shareholders, media and AIG employees at the Tuesday meeting given the countless secret service-like security staff clad with ear pieces posted at what seemed to be every doorway at 72 Wall St. Entree to the meeting could only be gained after passing through two levels of metal detectors and surrendering any bags and identification.
AIG not only sought to protect its executives from the angry masses, it also put forth its best efforts to protect them from the media, which AIG had blamed for a large part of its problems during its last quarterly earnings call. Members of the media were informed that executives would only answer questions from shareholders during the meeting and that they could not bring any recording devices. I was also told that executives would not be available after the meeting to answer questions. This inaccessibility was physically reinforced by a velvet rope separating the humbled masses from AIG's top executives during the meeting.
AIG may have looked out for its executives' security, but it did not offer the same security to at least one of its shareholders. One of the few questions from shareholders posed during the meeting came from an unidentified woman who asked Liddy, "Is there any hope for the future?"
The shareholder, who had explained that she lost a considerable portion of here retirement savings due to AIG's stock collapse, asked Liddy if she should continue to hold AIG's shares in hopes of a turnaround or instead sell now. An apologetic Liddy, who in his defense is a chief executive and not a personal financial adviser, could not offer her any assurances, quipping, "I am such a bad stock picker."
Shareholder Kenneth Steiner hoped to gain an extra level of security for fellow shareholders in proposing that AIG allow special meetings of shareholders between annual meetings to vote on matters such as director elections. He said that had special meetings been allowed during the past few years, the company may have avoided some of its problems. He pointed out that none of AIG's outgoing directors attended the Tuesday meeting, calling them "rats fleeing a sinking ship." Steiner's proposal and all other shareholder proposals were voted down. - Michael Rudnick
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