INDIANAPOLIS -- Conseco Inc. has taken its troubled St. Paul-based Conseco Finance unit off the market, choosing instead to restructure the division and...

...has halted much of its lending and is trying to conserve cash. The St. Paul-based financing arm of Indiana-based Conseco Inc., is trying to avoid bankruptcy and recently laid off about 140 employees, including about 40 in St. Paul. "That...

...isn't a rational and logical plan of operations that's going to yield some benefits," Hayes said. Insurance giant Conseco Inc., for example, went public in 1985 and promptly began 13 years of expansion by purchasing dozens of smaller firms...