Finance · Profile from Finance Research Companion
MetLife, Inc.
The New York life insurer founded in 1868 that grew rich selling "industrial" insurance door to door to factory workers, became America's largest life insurer as a policyholder-owned mutual, demutualised and listed on 7 April 2000, bought Citigroup's Travelers Life & Annuity (2005) and AIG's international life arm ALICO (2010) to become a global group, was designated a "systemically important" non-bank by the Financial Stability Oversight Council in December 2014 and became the only company to beat that designation in court (30 March 2016), spun off its US retail annuity business as Brighthouse Financial (2017), was fined for losing track of thousands of pension annuitants (2018–19), and under Michel Khalaf's "New Frontier" plan is betting on group benefits, pension risk transfer, asset management (PineBridge, 2025) and a Bermuda capital sidecar (Chariot Re, 2025).
At a glance
- Founded
- 1868, New York, as the National Travelers' Insurance Company; renamed Metropolitan Life Insurance Company the same year (company history)
- Headquarters
- New York City (MetLife Building, 200 Park Avenue, which it no longer owns but whose name it retains, reported)
- Ownership / structure
- Listed on the NYSE (ticker MET) since April 2000; holding company MetLife, Inc.; principal US insurer Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC); asset manager MetLife Investment Management (MIM)
- Leadership (2026)
- Michel Khalaf, president and CEO (since May 2019); predecessors Steven Kandarian (2011–19), C. Robert Henrikson (2006–11), Robert Benmosche (1998–2006, later AIG's CEO)
- Segment
- Life insurer: US group benefits (life, dental, disability for employers), retirement and income solutions (pension risk transfer, structured settlements, stable-value), Asia (Japan, Korea, others), Latin America (Mexico, Chile), EMEA, MetLife Holdings (closed run-off blocks), asset management
- Scale
- more than 100 million customers in more than 40 markets (MetLife 2025 sustainability report, Mar 2026; ~100m in 50+ countries in 2014, before the Brighthouse spin and market exits); total assets of roughly $700bn (verify); MIM assets under management ~$740bn+ after the PineBridge purchase closed on 30 December 2025 (reported)
- Profit
- 2025: net income ~$3.2bn ($4.71 per share); adjusted earnings excluding notable items ~$6.0bn, adjusted EPS ex-notables ~$8.89 (+10%) (company, February 2026; adjusted figures vary by definition, verify)
- Capital
- US statutory risk-based capital well above regulatory minimums; holding-company cash targeted at $3–4bn (company targets, verify)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Demutualisation and IPO (2000); Travelers Life & Annuity (2005); ALICO from AIG (2010); SIFI designation and court victory (2014–18); Brighthouse spin-off (2017); lost-annuitant reserve failure (2018); New Frontier, Chariot Re and PineBridge (2024–25); the pension-risk-transfer push (2022–26)
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2000
Demutualisation and IPO
Restructuring / IPO
2005
Travelers Life and Annuity Acquisition
Acquisition
2010
ALICO Acquisition from AIG
Acquisition
2014
SIFI Designation and 2016 Court Win
Regulatory / litigation
2017
Brighthouse Spin Off
Spin-off
2018
Lost Pension Annuitants Reserve Failure
Failure / regulatory settlement
2024
New Frontier Chariot Re and PineBridge
Partnership (reinsurance sidecar) / acquisition
2025
Pension Risk Transfer Push
Growth strategy (product and market expansion)