Former Hartford CEO McGee Dies at 60

Liam McGee, an Irish-born banker and coverage government who guided Hartford financial offerings institution Inc. thru a taxpayer bailout and shored up the company’s price range, has died. He become 60.

McGee died Feb. 13 after a two-12 months warfare with cancer, Hartford stated Monday in a announcement. He’d relocated together with his circle of relatives from Connecticut to California after studying he had the disorder and stepping down from the insurer.

McGee ran Hartford as chief government officer from October 2009 through the center of 2014, turning round an insurer that had been pressured right into a U.S. government rescue. The CEO sold inventory and debt to assist the Hartford, Connecticut-based totally organisation pay off its $3.four billion bailout, and retreated from life insurance and variable annuities to cognizance on property-casualty insurance.

“Liam become a man of dedication, integrity and compassion,” Hartford director Thomas Renyi said within the declaration. “Liam made the tough decisions important to guide the company via this period.”

The retirement merchandise, which guarantee a minimum go back to investors, contributed to extra than $4 billion in losses that Hartford posted throughout the 15 months earlier than McGee turned into employed to replace Ramani Ayer.

Hartford plunged extra than 90 percent from its 2007 peak to its low in March 2009 of $three.33 a percentage amid the worst economic disaster since the fantastic depression. It received the second- biggest bailout bundle among insurers below the bothered Asset remedy program.

“We discovered our lessons from the ultimate two years,” McGee told analysts and investors in April 2010. “never once more can we have a awareness in any product, whether or not it be annuities or some thing else, of the scale that VA was.”

‘some thing Drastic’

within six months of becoming a member of Hartford, McGee had raised $1.sixty five billion promoting inventory and some other $1.1 billion in debt. A inventory-market restoration helped Hartford publish its first earnings in six quarters inside the very last 3 months of 2009, and aided McGee as he raised capital.

McGee narrowed Hartford’s attention to belongings/casualty insurance in 2012 after the firm’s stock slipped to the bottom valuation relative to ebook cost of any essential coverage company. Billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson, who on the time controlled the biggest stake in the insurer, instructed McGee to “do something drastic” and urged him to cut up the agency.

McGee struck a deal in overdue 2012 to sell a lifestyles coverage unit to Prudential economic Inc. and disposed of a broking- dealer, retirement-plans enterprise and annuity devices inside the U.k and Japan. The inventory closed at $35.86 at the day his retirement become introduced, as compared with $26.50, the ultimate day before he became CEO.

“Liam McGee has led a generational transformation of Hartford, positioning it to prosper by using focusing on operations with enterprise-main positions,” Paulson & Co. stated in a declaration when the CEO introduced his departure. “We thank him for his efforts on behalf of shareholders.”

Chris swift, who became then chief economic officer, changed into named CEO to update McGee on July 1.

Irish Roots

Liam Edward McGee turned into born in County Donegal, eire, in 1954. His father, a los angeles bus driver who worked his way into management, moved the own family from eire to California when Liam turned into a baby.

McGee graduated from the university of San Diego in 1976 with a diploma in biology. He performed as a tumbler and outfielder for the college’s baseball crew, turned into lively in school government and wrote for the student newspaper.

He gave a commencement deal with in 2009, the 12 months his son, Stephen, graduated from the school.

“My recommendation changed into that something you do in life, you need to have a deep passion for it,” McGee stated in an October 2009 interview with the university. “when you have that passion, it received’t sense like work.”

Banking profession

McGee obtained an MBA from Pepperdine college and, in 1984, a law degree from Loyola regulation school in l.  a..

McGee didn’t constantly need to go into banking. “The fact is, I hated it — returned then it became all approximately office work, audits and initialing bureaucracy,” he instructed BusinessWeek in an editorial published in 2005.

Rejecting a career in law, he labored as a lending officer for a small California financial institution. He moved in 1990 to a predecessor to bank of the us Corp.

McGee spent almost two decades at the lender, rising to president of the customer and small commercial enterprise financial institution in Charlotte, North Carolina. He became liable for deposits and debit and helped oversee the combination of businesses that have been acquired by using the bank, consisting of FleetBoston financial Corp., LaSalle financial institution and credit score-card issuer MBNA Corp.

Kenneth Lewis, financial institution of the united states’s former CEO, called McGee a “genuine visionary” in Monday’s statement.

“We gave him large demanding situations at financial institution of the us and had high expectancies,” Lewis stated. “He passed the ones excessive expectations each time.”

McGee left financial institution of the us in 2009 after Lewis shifted future CEO Brian Moynihan to run the purchaser banking department. In a assertion on the time, McGee stated he would “pursue my purpose of running a company.”

education, Arts

McGee changed into former chairman of the college of San Diego’s board of trustees and served  phrases as a director of the la branch of the Federal Reserve financial institution of San Francisco. He additionally served at the board of the Bechtler Museum of modern-day art in Charlotte.

Hartford said in January 2013 that McGee had a tumor removed from his brain and would go through low-dose chemotherapy and radiation remedy. In June 2014, the enterprise said he changed into stepping down to cognizance on “persisted recovery from a current manner related to my previously disclosed health difficulty.” McGee left Hartford’s board of administrators in January 2015.

McGee is survived by means of his wife Lori Tomoyasu McGee, his sons Stephen Liam, Jordan William Riichi, Aidan Masayoshi, daughter Lauren Margaret Murray, and granddaughter, Finley Jane Murray. He’s also survived by means of his sister Mary and brothers Mike, John and Tom.