Benmosche's Many Battles
Robert Benmosche, chief executive of American International Group Inc., has seen his tenure marked by multiple challenges, the latest being his cancer diagnosis.</br></br>The disease was discovered last month following a routine medical check-up. The news came as the government-controlled insurer had a spate of positive developments to report, including the sale of one foreign insurance unit, the successful public offering of another, and the announcement of a plan to move on from government ownership and repay taxpayers.</br></br>Mr. Benmosche, who took the helm of the company in August 2009, recently sat for an interview on the 18th floor of AIG's New York headquarters. He talked about what AIG needs to accomplish before the year's end to prepare for the government's exit, the head winds facing its insurance businesses, and how he intends to deal with his illness, key details of which he hasn't divulged to AIG board members and government officials. Excerpts follow.</br></br>WSJ: AIG recently mapped out an exit-strategy plan to show investors and customers how the company intends to repay the government. Why do this and what has been the effect so far?</br></br>Mr. Benmosche: If you're a customer, you want to know whether this company is going to make it or not. Many people were saying we're a ward of the state, that there's no way we could pay back the taxpayers. But if you do an analysis, this is at least a $70 billion company and we will have about 1.8 billion shares. Our recent quarterly earnings [for core insurance operations] show we can earn $8 billion to $9 billion pretax income annually if other charges and write-downs stop occurring.