Book Review: Good for the Money

Good for the Money: My Fight to Pay Back America - Bob Benmosche

As an investor in AIG since 2011, I was very interested in this book, which provides the inside scoop (at least from Benmosche's perspective) of the recovery and payback of the bailout money in AIG.  I was impressed with Benmosche during his tenure as CEO as an investor, and after reading this book, I am even more.

Benmosche goes through his career, in a fairly abbreviated form, as a guy that is rough around the edges, but gets shit done.  That characterization seems a perfect synopsis for the AIG recovery, where the government and the press might not be too happy with him, but he got everyone paid back his way.  Although I'm sure it was difficult to see at the time, it does appear that his much slower approach to realize the value of assets as AIG was much better than the originally planned method of selling everything as fast as possible, which likely would not have yielded enough money to pay back the loan from the government.

As I was originally, I was again saddened by his cancer and eventual death.  Benmosche's effort at AIG throughout that period was impressive.