Steven A. Kandarian the Chief Investment Officer of MetLife has been named CEO in part for his foresight in not investing in subprime mortgages. “We like what we have on our books” Kandarian says towards the end at a Bloomberg interview – June 10, 2009 – almost two years ago -see the video:
As the sub-prime mortgages continues to assail US real estate, we need to celebrate people like Steven A. Kandarian who did not join the sub-prime bandwagon despite an euphoric atmosphere and undoubted pressure at the time.”If only” more executives had refused to buy doubtful mortgages – wealth in middle America would be very different today. For example, with more investor managers questioning the content of the sub-prime mortgage backed securities would have put a brake on their market. With no market for sub-prime mortgages,perhaps the upstream individual bad loans might have slowed down.
In any case, when it comes to the mortgage mess and its continuing pain,media reports of positive executive action is pretty rare. It is for this reason that we should celebrate Steven Kandarian’s recognition as CEO of MetLife.