US regulators last night grilled Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man, as they deepened a high-profile probe into murky financial dealings at the giant insurer AIG.
Buffett, 74, appeared before top officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the New York Attorney General's Office and the US Department of Justice.
On arrival he avoided a media scrum outside the SEC offices by using a concealed side entrance, underlining the sensitivity of the occasion for a man who built his vast fortune on ethical integrity.
The questioning focused on General Re, a wholly owned subsidiary of Buffett's holding company Berkshire Hathaway that sells reinsurance policies.
Such policies are popular among big insurance firms like AIG as they enable them to spread their own risks of facing a massive pay-out in the event of a natural disaster.
In late 2000, AIG purchased from General Re a $500m reinsurance policy, which investigators suspect the financially troubled group may have used to illegally bolster its bottom line.
'I've told them everything I know,' the 'Oracle of Omaha' said when finally chased down by reporters after his appearance. According to The Wall Street Journal, Buffett gave a tip to regulators that led to the fall of veteran AIG chief executive Maurice 'Hank' Greenberg, 79, in a boardroom coup at the end of March.
But Buffett denied acting in an underhand fashion to win lenient treatment for General Re from investigators, including New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Greenberg himself was to appear before the regulators on Tuesday but would refuse to answer questions, according to his lawyer David Boies.
