Robert Benmosche is still putting the finishing touches on his commencement address of hope. Read more »
Robert Benmosche
A while back I built a spreadsheet to do math about AIG, and it took me a long time and led to basically one short post with what I still think was a rather lovely blobby picture, so I’m just going to shamelessly reuse that spreadsheet with slight updates and be all OOH LOOK AN IRR:
So yeah: as the AIG bailout saga comes to its sort-of conclusion, we can sort of conclude that the government made a 5.6% return on its money. Assumptions etc. in the original post; the accounting profit ties out reasonably well, if you squint, with the Treasury’s official math.
Herewith some random observations and questions on AIG:1 Read more »
“Dear Colleagues,” Robert Benmosche wrote in a memo to AIG employees today. “We come together as a company to celebrate in good times and we draw together in times of shared crisis. Today warrants a celebration like no other in AIG’s history and places well in the past a crisis none of us will ever forget…Today the US Department of the Treasury has priced an offering of approximately 234.2 million shares of AIG common stock at a price to market of $32.50 per share. Upon the closing of this transaction, expected this Friday, Treasury will have sold the last of its remaining shares of AIG common stock, receiving proceeds of approximately $7.6 billion from the sale. The closing of this transaction will mark the full resolution of America’s financial support of AIG…It is one of the most extraordinary - and what many believed to be the most unlikely– turnarounds in American business history. And you did it…You did this. Every single man and woman at AIG did this remarkable thing. There is a saying in American life, there are no second acts. Well, take a bow, because today marks our second act.” [Dealbook]
Robert Benmosche Was Less Than Thrilled About Post-Crisis Restrictions On Corporate Jet Usage
By Bess Levin
After the Great Auto CEO Debacle of 2008, the government had put its foot down on private-jet use by CEOs of TARP-supported companies, and when these onerous restrictions threatened to thwart his ability to make his granddaughter’s birthday party in Chicago, he exploded. “I said to Jim, ‘Here is the deal,’ ” he recalls. “ ‘I’m going to go and see my granddaughter, and I’m going to take that plane and shove it up your fucking ass. And everyone else’s ass. You are going to break my banana over this shit?’ ” [NYM]
In a video accompanying a 40-page slide show describing AIG’s attributes, businesses and financial goals, Chief Executive Robert Benmosche said “there is no more crisis” for the bailed-out insurance company, which now has “lots of growth opportunities,” in his view. Alluding to recent tensions over the size and potential price of the stock offering that AIG and the U.S. Department of the Treasury launched this week, Mr. Benmosche said in the video: “Our sense is we have an incredible valuation opportunity here and we’re just not going to give it away. “If we don’t get the value today, then we’re going to get the value tomorrow… We’re not going to give 100% of the value away and sell it too cheap,” Mr. Benmosche said. [WSJ]
During a rainstorm in Washington in early 2009, amid the furor over Wall Street’s post-bailout bonuses, an American International Group employee pulled out an umbrella that had the insurer’s name on it. “Somebody came by, grabbed the umbrella and broke it,” said AIG Chief Executive Robert Benmosche, who added that the attacker told the employee to engage in a sexual act impossible to perform on oneself. [Reuters]
Something you’ve probably picked up on over the last year or so is that Robert Benmosche? Is no one’s bitch. Not the market’s bitch, not Treasury’s bitch, not Andrew Cuomo’s bitch, and definitely not cancer’s bitch. At times when others would’ve rolled over and taken it, ‘Mosche told them where they could go. So it should come as no surprise that in the face of the unfortunate news of his illness, Benmosche has not only pledged to keep at it with the insurer, but not let a little c-word sideline him when it comes to keeping fit. He covered this and other topics in a memo to employees this morning. Read more »
Bobby Benmosche, celebrating the fact that he’s survived an entire year to the day at AIG, an achievement no one saw coming. [WSJ]
Robert Benmosche Expects Government To Be Out Of AIG’s Hair Soon, Taxpayers To Get Their Money At Some Point
By Bess Levin
It pales in comparison to the insurer’s biggest news of the summer but exciting nonetheless. Read more »
The little CEO that could.
They said it couldn’t be done. They laughed when people suggested otherwise. They had good money riding on it, fact. They were wrong. And so today, we need to give a little credit where a little credit is due. A lot, in fact. Today, we need to give it up for AIG. Specifically, to the man at the top. Bobby “I’m gonna do unspeakable things to Andrew Cuomo” Benmosche, who’s achieved something so huge, it must be noted, and perhaps even toasted later today when his employees cut out early for 2for1′s. Have the taxpayers gotten their money back? No. Think bigger and wayyy more momentous. Read more »
Robert Benmosche has a vineyard in Croatia take care of and the finest bathroom fixtures money can buy. And it would be nice to tend to his grapes and enjoy some time on the can without having to worry about the company he’s been tasked with turning around, and the government breathing down his neck. He’s threatened to leave before and if he did now, people probably woudln’t give him too much shit, since it’s what every AIG CEO does anyway. Tradition and whatnot. But he’s promised his little workers that despite the fact that he honestly cannot take Ken Feinberg being such a god damn nag, and he’d be a lot happier just taking off, Daddy’s no deadbeat. Today he reaffirmed that commitment. Read more »
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