Ousted AIG CEO Maurice (Hank) Greenberg appears to be surrounding himself with loyal long-time veterans of the company he presided over for 37 years.

A trio of veteran AIG managers has been asked by Mr. Greenberg, 79, to join him on the board of controversial Starr International Company (SICo), a report in yesterday?s revealed.

At least two of the three have a former association with powerful private company SICo, including the man responsible for numerous parts of AIG?s global operation in past years ? including the Bermuda-based operations of AIG for 35 years.

Retired billionaire Ernest Stempel, 88, has rejoined Mr. Greenberg on the SICo board, a move decided by Mr. Greenberg after the forced exit last week of nine AIG executives from the company set up years ago by AIG management as a deferred compensation vehicle.

Mr. Stempel was contacted yesterday at his Bermuda home by but was not willing to answer questions about SICo.

?I?m not discussing it with anybody. I?m just not doing it. No comment. Thank you,? he said.

Mr. Stempel sat on the SICo board until 2001. He?s been brought back into the fold after Mr. Greenberg was forced out as AIG CEO on March 14 after nearly four decades steering the company.

AIG spokesman Joe Norton yesterday confirmed that Mr. Stempel continues as an honorary vice-chairman of the company, and has no other AIG titles.

Mr. Greenberg also asked former director Houghton Freeman back on the SICo board, with Mr. Freeman also having quit the SICo board in 2001. John J. Roberts was the third AIG veteran picked by Mr. Greenberg for the board.

Mr. Freeman is a retired AIG executive who worked for the firm selling insurance in China for 40 years. Mr. Roberts worked for AIG for more than 40 years, holding executive positions both overseas and in the United States. He previously had extensive involvement with the company?s activities in the Central and Eastern Europe, including now independent states of the former Soviet Union.

Both Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Stempel made Forbes magazine?s latest annual survey of billionaires. Mr. Greenberg ranked in 170 place with a net worth of $3.2 billion, while Mr. Stempel ? a long-time resident of Bermuda known for his philanthropic giving to Island causes ? placed at number 355 on the list with a net worth of $1.9 billion.

While Mr. Greenberg is out of the public company he ran for decades with an iron hand, he has retained control of SICo and a management firm C.V. Starr & Co. that had lucrative contracts with AIG, but was a private company.

Both are understood to have operated with little oversight from the AIG board despite the principals being AIG executives and the business of each being closely linked to the commercial insurance giant.

It is thought that Mr. Greenberg is perhaps consolidating his power by segmenting the company further from AIG by dismissing directors who retained ties to AIG.

Those making their exit included Mr. Greenberg?s replacement at AIG, Martin Sullivan, Donald P. Kanak, executive vice-chairman and COO, as well as Edmund Tse, a senior vice-chairman. All three sit on AIG?s board, and company filings in Bermuda revealed that Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Kanak had only sat on the SICo board since 2001.

The chairman of AIG?s Bermuda operation, Joseph Johnson, was made a SICo director in September, 1996 as was recently fired AIG executive, Howard Smith. It is known that Mr. Smith continues on the SICo board.

Bermuda filings at the Registrar of Companies had not this week been updated since the recent changes to its board, with no notice of board changes since 2001.

Although the total make-up of SICo?s board remains unclear, it is known that fired Bermuda-based legal counsel Michael Murphy has kept his ties to the private company.

SICo was housed at AIG?s Richmond Road address until it moved out more than a week ago. A new address for the company is not known, nor was it known whether other Starr entities controlled by those with AIG links were still based at the Bermuda office.

Those companies include year-old Starr International Investments Ltd., C.V. Starr International Investment Management Company Ltd. (incorporated 1998).

Michael Murphy, a long-time confidante of Mr. Greenberg, was secretary for all of these Starr companies. All list Bermuda?s AIG office, 29 Richmond Road, as their address.

One close to the matter said earlier this week that it was not clear which companies, with the exception of SICo, had moved and which companies were still in the AIG building.

AIG said last month that it would change its accounting treatment to expense the deferred compensations granted through SICo to certain AIG employees.