(Bloomberg) -- Liam McGee, an Irish-born banker and insuranceexecutive who guided Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. througha taxpayer bailout and shored up the company’s finances, has died.He was 60.

McGee died Feb. 13 after a two-year battle with cancer, Hartfordsaid Monday in a statement. He’d relocated with his family fromConnecticut to California after learning he had the disease andstepping down from the insurer.

McGee ran Hartford as chief executive officer from October 2009through the middle of 2014, turning around an insurer that had beenforced into a U.S. government rescue. The CEO sold stock and debtto help the Hartford, Connecticut-based company repay its $3.4billion bailout, and retreated from life insurance and variableannuities to focus on property-casualty coverage.

“Liam was a man of commitment, integrity and compassion,”Hartford director Thomas Renyi said in the statement. “Liam madethe tough decisions necessary to guide the company through thisperiod.”

The retirement products, which guarantee a minimum return toinvestors, contributed to more than $4 billion in losses thatHartford posted during the 15 months before McGee was hired toreplace Ramani Ayer.

Hartford plunged more than 90% from its 2007 peak to its low inMarch 2009 of $3.33 a share amid the worst financial crisis sincethe Great Depression. It received the second-largest bailoutpackage among insurers under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

“We learned our lessons from the last two years,” McGee toldanalysts and investors in April 2010. “Never again will we have aconcentration in any product, whether it be annuities or anythingelse, of the size that VA was.”

‘Something Drastic’

Within six months of joining Hartford, McGee had raised $1.65billion selling stock and another $1.1 billion in debt. Astock-market recovery helped Hartford post its first profit in sixquarters in the final three months of 2009, and aided McGee as heraised capital.

McGee narrowed Hartford’s focus to property-casualty insurancein 2012 after the firm’s stock slipped to the lowest valuationrelative to book value of any major insurance company. Billionairehedge-fund manager John Paulson, who at the time controlled thelargest stake in the insurer, told McGee to “do something drastic”and urged him to split the company.

McGee struck a deal in late 2012 to sell a life-insurance unitto Prudential Financial Inc. and disposed of a broker- dealer,retirement-plans business and annuity units in the U.K and Japan.The stock closed at $35.86 on the day his retirement was announced,compared with $26.50, the last day before he became CEO.

“Liam McGee has led a generational transformation of Hartford,positioning it to prosper by focusing on operations withindustry-leading positions,” Paulson & Co. said in a statementwhen the CEO announced his departure. “We thank him for his effortson behalf of shareholders.”

Chris Swift, who was then chief financial officer, was named CEOto replace McGee on July 1.

Irish Roots

Liam Edward McGee was born in County Donegal, Ireland, in 1954.His father, a Los Angeles bus driver who worked his way intomanagement, moved the family from Ireland to California when Liamwas a child.

McGee graduated from the University of San Diego in 1976 with adegree in biology. He played as a pitcher and outfielder for theuniversity’s baseball team, was active in school government andwrote for the student newspaper.

He gave a commencement address in 2009, the year his son,Stephen, graduated from the school.

“My advice was that whatever you do in life, you have to have adeep passion for it,” McGee said in an October 2009 interview withthe university. “If you have that passion, it won’t feel likework.”

Banking Career

McGee received an MBA from Pepperdine University and, in 1984, alaw degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

McGee didn’t always want to go into banking. “The truth is, Ihated it -- back then it was all about paperwork, audits andinitialing forms,” he told BusinessWeek in an article published in2005.

Rejecting a career in law, he worked as a lending officer for asmall California bank. He moved in 1990 to a predecessor to Bank ofAmerica Corp.

McGee spent almost 20 years at the lender, rising to presidentof the consumer and small business bank in Charlotte, NorthCarolina. He was responsible for deposits and debit and helpedoversee the integration of companies that were acquired by thebank, such as FleetBoston Financial Corp., LaSalle Bank andcredit-card issuer MBNA Corp.

Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America’s former CEO, called McGee a“true visionary” in Monday’s statement.

“We gave him huge challenges at Bank of America and had highexpectations,” Lewis said. “He exceeded those high expectationsevery time.”

McGee left Bank of America in 2009 after Lewis shifted futureCEO Brian Moynihan to run the consumer banking division. In astatement at the time, McGee said he would “pursue my goal ofrunning a company.”

Education, Arts

McGee was former chairman of the University of San Diego’s boardof trustees and served two terms as a director of the Los Angelesbranch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He also servedon the board of the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte.

Hartford said in January 2013 that McGee had a tumor removedfrom his brain and would undergo low-dose chemotherapy andradiation treatment. In June 2014, the company said he was steppingdown to focus on “continued recovery from a recent procedurerelated to my previously disclosed health issue.” McGee leftHartford’s board of directors in January 2015.

McGee is survived by his wife Lori Tomoyasu McGee, his sonsStephen Liam, Jordan William Riichi, Aidan Masayoshi, daughterLauren Margaret Murray, and granddaughter, Finley Jane Murray. He’salso survived by his sister Mary and brothers Mike, John andTom.

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.