As CFO and executive vice president of MetLife, BillWheeler is widely credited with playing a key role in steering the$41 billion insurance company through the perilous shoals of thecredit crisis and recession, and bringing it out on the other sidestronger and bigger than before.

But Wheeler, 48, is quick to credit others in the company who“made some pretty good investment calls” before the crisis hit.Notably, he says, as early as 2005 MetLife became concerned aboutstructured investments and started getting out of debt productsthat were based on subprime mortgages. Wheeler also “vividlyrecalls” a board meeting in late 2007, he says, when it was decidedthat a recession was ahead, “and we had to get out of cyclicalbusinesses–the auto companies, the airlines and the builders.”

William Wheeler

In late September of 2008, when the credit crisis really hit, “Isaw a fear factor, a kind of run, a crisis of investor confidence,”Wheeler says. He recommended that MetLife move fast to announce itsearnings early and then issue equity while it still could. “So weraised $2.3 billion in early October,” he says, “right before thebank crisis got to the insurance industry.

“That move gave us a financial cushion and put us in a positionto take advantage of some opportunities for acquisitions,” Wheelersays, opportunities that he felt certain the financial crisis wasgoing produce.

Indeed, even though MetLife was whacked by the same investorpanic that hit other financial companies, with its stock fallingfrom a 2007 high of $70 to just $12 by March 2009, in early 2009Wheeler and his team were able to start bidding quietly for Alico,the international arm of bankrupt American International Group.

Negotiations with AIG's board took almost a year, but on March 8of this year, MetLife was able to announce that it had itself adeal. It is buying Alico for $15.5 billion in a transaction thatWheeler claims will create “probably the largest life insurancecompany in the world.”

That deal poses Wheeler's biggest hurdle going forward. “This isthe largest acquisition in the history of MetLife, and possibly inthe history of the insurance industry,” he says. “So executing thatdeal, and looking for new global growth opportunities, will be mymain challenge over the next year.”

Wheeler credits his 10 years of experience handling M&Atransactions as an investment banker at Donaldson Lufkin &Jenrette with helping him negotiate the Alico deal. “Having had alot of deal experience at DLJ gave me the confidence to pushforward on this transaction,” he says.