AIG (AIG) CEO Says His Extravagent Vacation Is OK

AIG’s (AIG) new CEO Robert Benmosche is the wrong man for the job at the wrong time. He has been fighting for a $7 million base pay package to run a company that has taken $180 million in taxpayers’ money. His predecessor worked for $1 a year.

Benmosche has spent the early part of his tenure on vacation at his home in Croatia.

In an interview with Reuters, he said he was working hard in his 12 bedroom house. Benmosche claims that he spends plenty of time on conference calls and looking over AIG documents. He says, “I can work here as well as in the office in New York.” Perhaps he should continue to run AIG from his vacation home, if it is working out so well.

AIG has had PR problems for well over a year. It had huge losses due to toxic paper on its books. It had to ask the government for money on several occasions. Compensation of AIG executives and traders was vigorously questioned in Congress. The firm has been slow to sell assets which would help it send money back to the taxpayers. AIG’s former CEO Hank Greenberg has been hounded by federal prosecutors.

Now there is Benmosche, a man who is obviously wealthy, flaunting his riches and insisting on a pay package that violates the spirit of the Administration’s attempts to curb Wall St. pay. He is ironically everything that is wrong with Wall St. recruited to run one of its most severely crippled companies.

Douglas A. McIntyre