Hartford Financial Chairman/CEO Ayer To Retire By Year-End

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (HIG) Chairman and Chief Executive Ramani Ayer will retire by the end of this year, ending 12 years as the company's top man.

The move comes four months after President and Chief Operating Officer Neal Wolin resigned to take become deputy economic counsel in the Obama administration.

Hartford said it will look externally for a successor to the 62-year-old, who has spent his entire 35-year career with the company.

Shares rose 1.8% premarket to $15.14. The stock is down 78% the past year as Hartford has been among the hardest-hit life insurers in the ongoing credit crisis thanks to investment losses and troubles at its annuity business.

The company suspended some sales of annuities, which carry guaranteed minimum returns. But because of the equity market's slump before the ongoing three-month rebound, annuity purveyors have to make up the difference if investmnet returns can't fulfill the required minimums.

Ayer said his decision to retire follows "a series of important decisions" about Hartford's future direction. "It is the right time for me to make my plans for retirement and for the board to begin the search for my successor."

The company in April sharply cut its 2009 guidance and said it was pursuing options for its institutional markets business to preserve capital and reduce risks. It also is shopping its profitable property and casualty business, which could sell for $6 billion to $7 billion, and paring back abroad.

Hartford and Lincoln National Corp. (LNC) are the only two life insurers which have said they are inclined to take funds from the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Fitch Ratings recently downgraded the insurer one notch to two steps above junk, citing the difficulties.

-By Mike Barris, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5658; [e-mail]