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Influence, like insurance, requires its holder to increase the value of other peoples' investments. Arthur F. Ryan, CEO of Newark's Prudential Insurance, has done so decisively enough to become BUSINESS NEWS' 1998 Chairman of the Board of New Jersey business. While Ryan has only been around the state since November 1994, he has become New Jersey's most influential executive.
"Ryan has embraced not only New Jersey but Newark in particular," says Sam Crane, head of Newark's Regional Business Partnership. And Prudential, after several years of trying to recover from myriad problems, has been much in evidence all around the state. When Prudential needed legislation to authorize its February pledge to change from a mutual to a stock company, the legislature passed it within a month. When the firm's real estate strategy shifted toward partnerships and trusts last spring, Prudential sold properties at record prices statewide. Governor Whitman delivered her 1998 inaugural address from Newark's Prudential Hall.
Some of Prudential's sway derives from its structure: the state's Chief Justice appoints six Prudential directors. Some derives from its size: New Jerseyans paid nearly $2 billion in 1996 premiums to Prudential, which also manages pension assets for megacorps like AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Hoffmann-La Roche. After Prudential moved 3,500 employees to downtown Newark from around the state since 1997, Newark's office market tightened.
Anthony Wright of New Jersey Citizen Action, which seeks greater public participation in demutualization, calls Prudential "incredibly formidable" throughout the state. Unlike a utility that has to make frequent rate filings, Wright notes, the Rock rolls "in a very quiet way
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