Softechie:" Wendt built GE Capital into a .giant..& the MAIN
MAIN GROWTH ENGINE behind one of the world's most
profitable companies."
Can we say....
CONSECO back to $ 50/share ?,..............soon? <vbg>.
TA
REUTERS :
New Conseco CEO famous for GE record, divorce case
moneycentral.msn.com
June 29, 2000 11:43 AM
By Matthew Lewis
HARTFORD, Conn., June 29 (Reuters) - Gary Wendt, the new chief executive
of troubled life insurer Conseco Inc. CNC ,
made his name building the financial services
unit at General Electric Co GE but is equally famous for
one of the most highly publicised,
high-stakes divorce trials in recent memory.
Analysts describe Wendt, who was appointed
as Conseco's new chief executive on Thursday,
as a brilliant, hard-driving strategist with a
sometimes cantankerous personality,
who
will give Conseco a much-needed shot of GE's famously focused,
results-oriented culture.
However, Wendt, 58 this year, is also known for
paying $20 million to his former wife,
Lorna Wendt, in a drawn-out divorce case
which analysts say embarrassed
General Electric and sparked a national debate on
the value of corporate wives.
"He clearly won't stand for businesses that are underperformers,"
said Larry Mayewski, analyst at rating agency A.M. Best Co., which earlier this
month downgraded 14 Conseco insurance units due to doubts about the intended
sale of its Conseco Finance consumer-lending unit and weak
operating results at the insurance units.
During his 24-year career at Fairfield, Conn.-based GE, from 1975 to 1998,
Wendt built GE Capital into a diversified,
financial-services giant -- though one that is largely
invisible to the public -- and the main growth engine
behind one of the world's most profitable companies.
In his 15 years running GE Capital, from 1984 to 1998,
profits rose from about $300 million to nearly $4 billion.
GE Capital operates in a range of businesses including
real estate, auto leasing, reinsurance and personal
insurance and savings products.
Wendt, a native of Rio, Wis., and a Harvard Business
School graduate, was perceived by analysts as a possible
successor to Jack Welch, GE's venerated chairman and chief
executive, until he left GE in December
of 1998 to form his own investment fund.
"He built GE Capital into one of America's largest
financial institutions over his tenure,
which was very impressive," Mayewski said.
Wendt's departure from GE came a year after his wife,
Lorna Wendt, dragged him through a sensational divorce
trial, at which she argued that by sacrificing her own
career to take on the full-time job of raising a family,
her contributions to the marriagewere as great as the
paychecks brought home by her husband.
She claimed she was entitled to half of her husband's total
worth, which she estimated at $100 million. Wendt claimed
his total worth was far less.
In December 1997, a Connecticut court awarded her $20
million. Connecticut's appellate court has yet to rule on
her claim to a part of Wendt's pensions, stock options and
restricted stock.
Wendt takes over the job of permanent chief executive of
Conseco from the six-times married Stephen Hilbert, who
resigned in April, saying he had lost the confidence of
Conseco investors. David Harkins,president of investment
firm Thomas H. Lee Partners,a minority Conseco shareholder,
acted as interim chief executive.
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