netrashetty
Netra Shetty
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) (NYSE: AIG) is an American insurance corporation. Its corporate headquarters are located in the American International Building in New York City. The British headquarters office is on Fenchurch Street in London, continental Europe operations are based in La Défense, Paris, and its Asian headquarters office is in Hong Kong. According to the 2008 Forbes Global 2000 list, AIG was once the 18th-largest public company in the world. It was listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average from April 8, 2004 to September 22, 2008.
AIG suffered from a liquidity crisis when its credit ratings were downgraded below "AA" levels in September 2008. The United States Federal Reserve Bank on September 16, 2008 created an $85 billion credit facility to enable the company to meet increased collateral obligations consequent to the credit rating downgrade, in exchange for the issuance of a stock warrant to the Federal Reserve Bank for 79.9% of the equity of AIG. The Federal Reserve Bank and the United States Treasury by May 2009 had increased the potential financial support to AIG, with the support of an investment of as much as $70 billion, a $60 billion credit line and $52.5 billion to buy mortgage-based assets owned or guaranteed by AIG, increasing the total amount available to as much as $182.5 billion.[3][4] AIG subsequently sold a number of its subsidiaries and other assets to pay down loans received, and continues to seek buyers of its assets.
Robert Benmosche has the toughest task in corporate America – keeping AIG afloat while finding some $80bn (£50bn, €56bn) to repay US taxpayers and free the insurer from government ownership. Since taking over in August , Mr Benmosche has clashed with government officials over executives’ pay, threatened to resign and halted the “fire sale of the century” – a plan to sell large chunks of the once-mighty insurer that had been blessed by the federal authorities after they first bailed out AIG in September [2008]. Mr Benmosche believes that his aggressive management style has helped stop the rot at a company that was heading for liquidation and was being lambasted by politicians for paying bonuses with federal money. He predicts it will take at least two years for AIG to sell businesses and earn enough profits to repay the government and persuade it to sell its 80 per cent stake. The authorities are not as confident. Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, recently told Congress he did not believe the government [would] be fully refunded for its largesse towards AIG. The Government Accountability Office has estimated that taxpayers will end up losing more than $30bn on the insurer.
The recent crises in financial institutions have revealed that many were led by charismatic and dominant individuals whose style in hindsight was often associated with narcissism and worse psychological characteristics. [Mandrill Management, as it has been called in earlier blogs]. There is much to be said for a direct and forceful style in times of crisis. Mr Benmosche has a chance to provide a more positive exemplar for such a style. We will follow the case carefully.
Robert Benmosche’s background
Born: 1944, Brooklyn, New York
Education: New York Military Academy; BA in Mathematics, Alfred University, NY
Career: Truck driver for Coca-Cola; two years as a lieutenant in the US Army Signal Corps. ; In 1966 worked in technology at consultancy Arthur D. Little
before joining Chase in 1979; Between 1982 and 1995 he was at Paine Webber, the brokerage house, working variously in marketing, finance, operations, human resources and sales; Moved to MetLife in 1995 as its chief executive, before retiring
in 2006. Appointed CEO of AIG in August 2009 after the corporate upheaval of the credit crunch. Hobbies: “I need to find the time to go beyond learning wine-making and jogging.”
A Note on Situational Leadership
Students of leadership will still come across the venerable theory of situational leadership. The textbook Dilemmas of Leadership traces the concept to an influential article in Harvard Business Review from the late 1950s, reprinted as a classic 25 years later. Prior to the 1950s, trait theorists had assumed there was a ‘one right way to lead organizations. By the 1950s, the older trait theories were being replaced by theories which suggested there was still a ‘one right way’, by that the ‘way’ would be influenced by context. Contingency theories have a family resemblance to situational theories. They don’t take contrasting positions. Any confusion is due more to historical differences. Contingency theories came from broader studies iof organization; situational leadership as its label implies has been limited within leadership studies, and subject to ‘appropriation’ by consultant-academics such as Hersey and Blanchard.
Situational Leadership was a movement away from earlier full-blown trait theories of ‘what leaders are’ (fixed traits) to ‘what leaders do’. There is no simple way through the ‘contingency/situational’ jungle. Rickards and Clark (Dilemmas of Leadership) suggest that any leadership theory can be studied for exploring the dilemmas which any leader has to deal with. For example, situational leadership suggests that a leader who adapts to situations may produce anxieties and lack of trust and confidence in others regarding his or her ‘authenticity’. This is a dilemma of trust in seeking the appropriate behaviours to exercise leadership influence or control.
AIG suffered from a liquidity crisis when its credit ratings were downgraded below "AA" levels in September 2008. The United States Federal Reserve Bank on September 16, 2008 created an $85 billion credit facility to enable the company to meet increased collateral obligations consequent to the credit rating downgrade, in exchange for the issuance of a stock warrant to the Federal Reserve Bank for 79.9% of the equity of AIG. The Federal Reserve Bank and the United States Treasury by May 2009 had increased the potential financial support to AIG, with the support of an investment of as much as $70 billion, a $60 billion credit line and $52.5 billion to buy mortgage-based assets owned or guaranteed by AIG, increasing the total amount available to as much as $182.5 billion.[3][4] AIG subsequently sold a number of its subsidiaries and other assets to pay down loans received, and continues to seek buyers of its assets.
Robert Benmosche has the toughest task in corporate America – keeping AIG afloat while finding some $80bn (£50bn, €56bn) to repay US taxpayers and free the insurer from government ownership. Since taking over in August , Mr Benmosche has clashed with government officials over executives’ pay, threatened to resign and halted the “fire sale of the century” – a plan to sell large chunks of the once-mighty insurer that had been blessed by the federal authorities after they first bailed out AIG in September [2008]. Mr Benmosche believes that his aggressive management style has helped stop the rot at a company that was heading for liquidation and was being lambasted by politicians for paying bonuses with federal money. He predicts it will take at least two years for AIG to sell businesses and earn enough profits to repay the government and persuade it to sell its 80 per cent stake. The authorities are not as confident. Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, recently told Congress he did not believe the government [would] be fully refunded for its largesse towards AIG. The Government Accountability Office has estimated that taxpayers will end up losing more than $30bn on the insurer.
The recent crises in financial institutions have revealed that many were led by charismatic and dominant individuals whose style in hindsight was often associated with narcissism and worse psychological characteristics. [Mandrill Management, as it has been called in earlier blogs]. There is much to be said for a direct and forceful style in times of crisis. Mr Benmosche has a chance to provide a more positive exemplar for such a style. We will follow the case carefully.
Robert Benmosche’s background
Born: 1944, Brooklyn, New York
Education: New York Military Academy; BA in Mathematics, Alfred University, NY
Career: Truck driver for Coca-Cola; two years as a lieutenant in the US Army Signal Corps. ; In 1966 worked in technology at consultancy Arthur D. Little
before joining Chase in 1979; Between 1982 and 1995 he was at Paine Webber, the brokerage house, working variously in marketing, finance, operations, human resources and sales; Moved to MetLife in 1995 as its chief executive, before retiring
in 2006. Appointed CEO of AIG in August 2009 after the corporate upheaval of the credit crunch. Hobbies: “I need to find the time to go beyond learning wine-making and jogging.”
A Note on Situational Leadership
Students of leadership will still come across the venerable theory of situational leadership. The textbook Dilemmas of Leadership traces the concept to an influential article in Harvard Business Review from the late 1950s, reprinted as a classic 25 years later. Prior to the 1950s, trait theorists had assumed there was a ‘one right way to lead organizations. By the 1950s, the older trait theories were being replaced by theories which suggested there was still a ‘one right way’, by that the ‘way’ would be influenced by context. Contingency theories have a family resemblance to situational theories. They don’t take contrasting positions. Any confusion is due more to historical differences. Contingency theories came from broader studies iof organization; situational leadership as its label implies has been limited within leadership studies, and subject to ‘appropriation’ by consultant-academics such as Hersey and Blanchard.
Situational Leadership was a movement away from earlier full-blown trait theories of ‘what leaders are’ (fixed traits) to ‘what leaders do’. There is no simple way through the ‘contingency/situational’ jungle. Rickards and Clark (Dilemmas of Leadership) suggest that any leadership theory can be studied for exploring the dilemmas which any leader has to deal with. For example, situational leadership suggests that a leader who adapts to situations may produce anxieties and lack of trust and confidence in others regarding his or her ‘authenticity’. This is a dilemma of trust in seeking the appropriate behaviours to exercise leadership influence or control.