Do not worry, US taxpayer.
Robert Benmosche, the new CEO of bailed-out mega-insurer AIG, may be on holiday, but he is actually very busy doing very important things. He just happens to be doing those things from his palatial 12-bedroom villa on the Croatian coast.
In a Reuters interview out on Thursday, Benmosche has a go at justifying his decision to take a three-week holiday during his first month as head of the insurer.
The impressively long list of things the CEO is doing while in Croatia, as told to Reuters by the CEO, is below:
- Conference calls (three on Wednesday alone).
- Overseeing the harvest of his vineyards.
- Spending time with his children and grandchildren.
- A four-mile (6 kilometer) walk every day.
- Frequent e-mail and stock price checks.
- Receiving an in-house massage several times a week.
Oh, and he had three hours to spend talking to Adam Tanner, the Reuters reporter. But can you blame him for being so keen to spend time on the Adriatic coast, when his villa features such fancy things as artistic bathrooms? :“Every bathroom is like a piece of art,” he said while showing off his master bathroom with his wife Denise. “Women go wild when they walk in here.”We’ll leave you to imagine what those bathrooms might look like. In the meantime, here is a nice photo of Benmosche in front of his speed boat:
A slightly odd sense of priorities may help explain the CEO’s decision to take his holiday:
“You also hear me referred to as the bull in the china shop. And I can be, I can break things. But what is important is that when I show up, I get everybody’s attention.”Unfortunately, he is already now getting every body’s attention — and criticism — by not showing up.
But, don’t worry, Benmosche’s salary — $3m in cash and $4m in stock, plus a performance-based bonus of up to $3.5m — is positively diminutive according to the CEO :
“It’s the bottom end of a competitive range” he said.
He plans to return to work after the US Labor Day holiday on September 7.
The first thing he should do is replace his PR team.
Related links:
Fannie, Freddie and AIG surge – FT
AIG’s new CEO reaches out to Greenberg – Reuters