Sanford I. Weill

Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill (born March 16, 1933) is an American banker, financier and philanthropist.

He is a former chief executive and chairman of Citigroup.

Weill received a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Cornell in 1955.

Weill's middle initial of "I" is not an abbreviation for anything.

He has said:

"My mother wanted to name me after somebody whose name started with an 'I', but she couldn't think of a name she liked. So she gave me the initial with the idea that after I was 21 I could choose whatever middle name I wanted."

Weill, shortly after graduating from Cornell University, got his first job on Wall Street in 1955 – as a runner for Bear Stearns.

In 1956, he became a licensed broker at Bear Stearns.

Rather than making phone calls or personal visits to solicit clients, Weill found he was far more comfortable sitting at his desk, poring through companies' financial statements and disclosures made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

For weeks his only client was his mother, Etta, until his later to be wife, Joan, persuaded an ex-boyfriend to open a brokerage account.

While working at Bear Stearns, Weill was a neighbor of Arthur L. Carter who was working at Lehman Brothers.

Together with Roger Berlind and Peter Potoma, they formed Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill in May 1960.

In 1962 the firm became Carter, Berlind & Weill after the New York Stock Exchange brought disciplinary proceedings against Potoma.

Weill served as the firm's Chairman from 1965 to 1984, a period in which it completed over 15 acquisitions to become the country's second-largest securities brokerage firm.

In 1968, with the departure of Arthur Carter, the firm was renamed Cogan, Berlind, Weill & Levitt (Marshall Cogan, Arthur Levitt), or CBWL jokingly referred to on Wall Street as "Corned Beef With Lettuce".

The company became CBWL-Hayden, Stone, Inc. in 1970; Hayden Stone, Inc. in 1972; Shearson Hayden Stone in 1974, when it merged with Shearson Hammill & Co.; and Shearson Loeb Rhoades in 1979, when it merged with Loeb, Rhoades, Hornblower & Co.

With capital totaling $250 million, Shearson Loeb Rhoades trailed only Merrill Lynch as the largest securities broker.

In 1981, Weill sold Shearson Loeb Rhoades to American Express for about $915 million in stock.

In 1982, he founded the National Academy Foundation with the Academy of Finance to educate high school students.

Weill began serving as president of American Express Co. in 1983 and as chairman and CEO of American Express's insurance subsidiary, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, in 1984.

Weill was succeeded by his protégé, Peter A. Cohen, who became the youngest head of a Wall Street firm.

While at American Express, Weill began grooming his newest protégé, Jamie Dimon, the future CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

Weill resigned from American Express in August 1985 at age 52.

After an attempt to become the CEO of BankAmerica Corp., he persuaded Minneapolis-based Control Data Corporation to spin off a troubled subsidiary, Commercial Credit, a consumer finance company.

In 1986 Weill bought Commercial Credit for $7 million.

After a period of layoffs and reorganization, the company completed a successful IPO.

In 1987, he acquired Gulf Insurance.

The next year, he paid $1.5 billion for Primerica, the parent company of Smith Barney and the A. L. Williams insurance company.

In 1989, he acquired Drexel Burnham Lambert's retail brokerage outlets.

In 1992, he paid $722 million to buy a 27% share of Travelers Insurance, which had gotten into trouble because of bad real estate investments.

In 1993 he reacquired his old Shearson brokerage (now Shearson Lehman) from American Express for $1.2 billion.

By the end of the year, he had completely taken over Travelers Corp in a $4 billion stock deal and officially began calling his corporation Travelers Group Inc. In 1996 he added to his holdings, at a cost of $4 billion, the property and casualty operations of Aetna Life & Casualty.

In September 1997 Weill acquired Salomon Inc., the parent company of Salomon Brothers Inc. for over $9 billion in stock.

In April 1998, Travelers Group announced an agreement to undertake the $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp, and the merger was completed on October 8, 1998.

The possibility remained that the merger would run into problems connected with federal law.

Ever since the Glass–Steagall Act, banking and insurance businesses had been kept separate.

He served in those positions from 1998 until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, respectively.

Sanford I. Weill was born in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrants, Etta (Kalika) and Max Weill.

He attended P.S. 200 in Bensonhurst.

He also attended Peekskill Military Academy in Peekskill, New York, then enrolled at Cornell University where he was active in the Air Force ROTC and the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.