George S. May Business Blog

AIG CEO Ed Liddy out, MetLife CEO Robert Benmosche in

AIG Inc. has tapped on MetLife Inc. CEO Robert Benmosche to be the company’s next CEO. Benmosche will be their 5^th leader in four years.

“Benmosche, 65, would replace Edward Liddy, who was appointed by the government in September after AIG agreed to turn over an 80 percent stake in the insurer in exchange for a bailout, the Journal said on its Web site. Mark Herr, a spokesman for New York-based AIG, declined to comment.

AIG’s new leader must find a way to stanch losses, stem the exodus of customers and employees and repay the loan portion of a rescue package that swelled to $182.5 billion. Liddy said in May he would step down as soon as a replacement is appointed to run the insurer, which lost almost $100 billion last year after bad bets on subprime mortgages.

The post is “the most intellectually stimulating job in America,” Liddy, 63, said in May when he recommended the company split the responsibilities of CEO and chairman. He holds both positions and said he also plans to leave the board.

AIG’s board approved a compensation package valued at $7 million to $10 million, the Journal said, adding that it was unclear if the pay would be approved by Kenneth Feinberg, who is reviewing executive pay for the Obama administration at firms that received the most U.S. aid.”

Here is a bit of background on Mr. Benmosche:

Hometown: Monticello, N.Y. (Catskills)

Age: 64

Childhood: His father died when Benmosche was 10, leaving behind $250,000 in debt and hotel a restaurant that the family continued to run. He had three young siblings.

College: He majored in Math at Alfred University, in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains in Western New York. Paid his tuition by driving a Coca-Cola delivery truck

Army: Spent 13 months in Korea in the U.S. Signal Corp. during the Vietnam War.

Early work years: Worked as a computer consultant from 1966 to 1975 and joined Chase Manhattan Bank to work on its systems group. He was hired by Paine Webber in 1982, where he headed systems and managed 1500 brokers. He joined MetLife in 1995

Named Metropolitan Life CEO in 1998: The move was a break for the stodgy, often insular insurance giant which had typically promoted longtime insiders to the top job.

Biggest accomplishment: Presided over MetLife’s $2.51 billion initial public offering in 2000. It was a complicated deal that converted MetLife to a shareholder-owned company from a mutual insurance company owned by 11 million policy holders, and was much smaller than the original IPO plan. Still, by the end of 2000, MetLife’s share price had more than doubled from its initial price of $13 a share.

Pushing out Snoopy: As MetLife prepared to go public, Benmosche decided to downplay the Peanut’s character in MetLife’s advertisements. “I felt it was too much Snoopy,” Mr. Benmosche said in 1999. “When you talk about Met Life, you say, ‘That’s Snoopy’s company,’ and that’s important. But we also want the ads to begin to remind people why to do business with MetLife.”

Notable Quote: “You love him or you don’t like him at all because of his sometimes confrontational style,” Martin A. Stein, a vice-chairman at BankAmerica Corp, who had known Benmosche for more than 25 years.

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