Gary Wendt: How's He Doing?

Three years ago, life turned bitter for Gary C. Wendt. First, the then-chief executive of General Electric Capital Services Inc. went through a very public, exceptionally acrimonious divorce. Then his boss, John F. Welch, CEO of General Electric Co., asked him to resign. Welch had begun looking for successors and thought Wendt, who ran GE's most profitable division, would overshadow the contenders. So Wendt relinquished control of his $41 billion empire and tried to live quietly in Greenwich, Conn.

It didn't much suit him. When four shareholders of beleaguered insurance and finance company Conseco Inc. approached Wendt 18 months later, he needed little persuasion. Conseco was the perfect challenge for the still-ambitious Wendt: It was clearly in trouble, and he would be clearly in charge. Conseco also offered a $45 million signing bonus and a compensation package that could now total $200 million--and is only loosely tied to performance. Within a month, Wendt and new wife Rosemarie headed for Carmel, Ind. Here--at a business one-fifth the size of GE Capital, in a town with few other companies of note--Wendt hopes to come into his own again.