Sanford Weill Interview (page: 5 / 5) Financier and Philanthropist	Print Interview

People say that you're destined to go for another big deal, do you agree with that?

Sanford Weill: We're fortunate that we're in industries that are consolidating. The whole financial industry is consolidating in the United States. And as U.S. companies, we're looking at how we're going to participate around the world.

Our company is very strong financially. It's done very, very well. It's not leveraged in anything we do, so I think we're positioned to do that. We've got to be careful that we don't get too greedy, that, when the right opportunities come along, we're not too busy working on something that's not nearly as important.

I've heard you're a real detail person.

Sanford Weill: Details create the big picture. I'm not as involved in every little thing as I used to be. We have really terrific people in our company, but I've had the luck of starting at the bottom, so I know the pieces that one puts together a business from. It's important to know what you're talking about and not be a big macro person that's flying above everybody's head.

You insist that your executives own stock and take a personal interest in how the company runs.

Sanford Weill: We think that ownership is really key.

Ownership gets people to think like owners, to think that the company is really theirs. Really good ideas and innovative ideas come from the bottoms of organizations -- not really the tops of organizations -- where people are dealing directly with the customers and really understand what the market wants, rather than dictating what the market wants, where people can see the silly things that the chairman may be doing, or whatever, that's wasting a lot of money and there might be a better way to do it.
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We encourage people to think that way. The best way to do that is through ownership. If we build something great, like we have at Travelers Group so far, a whole host of people benefit. When our company went public about ten and a half years ago with Commercial Credit here in Baltimore, we paid our directors in stock. Very few companies did that in those years. Today, 14 of our 15 independent directors have over a million dollars worth of stock. I don't think there's another company in America where the directors own so much. So they think about what's really important.

Part of what our top executives get paid every year is in stock, rather than cash. We have an agreement with each other, as well as our directors, that none of us can sell the stock, we can only give it away to charity. So that as long as we're going to be active in the business, we're increasing our ownership and increasing our involvement, rather than decreasing it. We also want to encourage people to do things in their community, therefore we can use some of that appreciation to make charitable contributions.

Now we're broadening it out. Everybody in our company -- all 60,000 people -- will be given stock options, so that we can teach people about saving and planning for their financial future. Most people have found out that Social Security won't do it, and just a plain company pension plan won't do it. You have to plan for yourself. Our system is based on people understanding savings and investment. What is their dream? What do they need to accomplish that? I hope the performance of our company will help the people that work in this company achieve their dreams.

I'm sure it will. Thank you, Mr. Weill.

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