On The Hunt…
Something is afoot and I wanted to share the beginning of the trail with you….stay with me.
Late last night, I read that Edward Liddy was stepping down as AIG’s chief, and then found the following article this evening.
AIG chief Edward Liddy to step down – without being paid
Edward Liddy, the finance industry executive brought out of retirement by the US government to run the nationalised insurer AIG, is to quit as soon as a replacement can be found, foregoing the chance of being paid for his work.
After eight months at the centre of political rows and public opprobrium over the spiralling cost of the AIG bail-out, Mr Liddy said last night he wanted to go back into retirement.
His departure leaves the Obama administration with the headache of filling one of the toughest jobs in the government-controlled sector of the finance industry, or more accurately, two of the toughest jobs, since Mr Liddy recommended that AIG split the roles of chairman and chief executive.
And then I ran across this:
Evercore’s Altman to Give Up CEO Post
BlackRock Inc. co-founder Ralph L. Schlosstein is expected to take over as chief executive of Evercore Partners Inc. from Roger C. Altman, who will remain as executive chairman but give up daily management of the firm, according to people familiar with the matter.
The planned changes, which have yet to be approved by Evercore’s board, are designed to expand the firm’s asset-management unit and other areas outside its core advisory practice. The firm has made a number of investments in that area, including the recent acquisition of a Bank of America Corp. unit that manages employee benefit plans.
Mr. Schlosstein is a veteran asset manager, having co-founded BlackRock with Laurence D. Fink back in 1988. Messrs. Altman and Schlosstein have been close for most of their careers. Both worked at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and served in the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Altman, who started his career at Lehman Brothers in the 1970s, is one of the few remaining Wall Street bankers who helped transform the practice of mergers and acquisitions from a backwater into a highly sophisticated and profitable business.
In 1996, he started Evercore, using his political and banking connections to build one of Wall Street’s more successful boutique investment banks. The firm derives most of its revenue from advising clients on deals and corporate restructurings. In addition to its asset-management arm, Evercore also operates a small private-equity business, an area where it has stumbled.
Evercore has weathered the financial crisis largely unscathed, and its stock has risen nearly 20% over the past year. The firm ranked 10th among Wall Street firms by the total dollar volume of the transactions it advised on in the first quarter, according to Thomson Reuters.
In 1988, Mr. Schlosstein left Lehman, where he headed the firm’s mortgage-backed-bond group, and co-founded BlackRock with Laurence D. Fink. BlackRock, where Mr. Schlosstein served as president until last year, manages more than $1 trillion in investment assets. The firm has recently drawn attention for its role helping the government design programs for managing banks’ distressed assets.
Go here for more on Blackrock and their interesting business practices.
And THEN I saw this just a few minutes later:
Xerox CEO Mulcahy retiring, Burns to replace her
NEW YORK (AP) — Xerox Corp. said Thursday that Chief Executive Anne Mulcahy will retire July 1, to be succeeded by Ursula Burns, the printer and copier maker’s president. She will make Xerox the largest U.S. company to be headed by a black woman.
The move has been in the works since Burns, 50, became heir apparent and company president in April 2007.
No company in the Fortune 500 has ever had a black woman as CEO, according to Daniel Kile, a spokesman for the magazine.
Burns, who joined Xerox in 1980, takes the top job in a period of renewed stress on the company, as the recession crimps spending on printer equipment and supplies. Xerox said late last year it would cut 3,000 jobs to reduce costs, and the company’s first-quarter revenue fell 18 percent.
Mulcahy, 56, will continue to chair the Xerox board.
Okay – please explain to me the odds of what you have just read. Three big name chiefs announcing “retirement” on the same day? I wonder how many more I will find in the next few days, and on whose orders they are leaving/moving around?
I will keep you posted as to what I uncover down the rabbit hole.
