Citigroup plans to launch a $200 million fund for small-business lending in low and moderate income communities.
Financial services provider Citigroup is under pressure from federal banking regulators for shuffling its board, including the replacement of its chairman, amid concerns whether chief executive Vikram Pandit will retain his job, a media report says.
Citigroup's Vikram Pandit may have been named among worst CEOs ever in America, but in terms of financial performance for the first quarter of this year, the banking behemoth has emerged as one of the best performers among the US companies run by persons of Indian origin.
Citi has already received fresh capital injection to the tune of $45 billion from the Federal government and officials way back in November reportedly had even discussed the option of replacing Pandit.
Mobile phone maker Motorola's India-born chief Sanjay Jha has emerged America's top paid chief executive officer, while Citigroup's Vikram Pandit tops the league among bailed out banks, a survey said. Another Indian on the list is PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi at the 36th slot with a pay package of $13.98 million.
Don't dig into personal reserves, avoid personal and short-term loans.
Citigroup's Indian origin CEO Vikram Pandit, who has been on a major restructuring drive, including thousands of layoffs, since taking charge late last year, has asked his colleagues to help transform the "best financial institution" into the world's top-most company.
India-born Vikram Pandit led world's biggest bank Citigroup is planning to overhaul its bonus system, aimed to increase co-operation and minimise in-fighting among disparate parts of the conglomerate, a media report said.
Vikram Pandit-led Citigroup has came under fire from the US President Barack Obama and his administration for purchasing a $50 million jet plane.
PepsiCo's Chennai-born Indra Nooyi tops the list of Indian-origin CEOs in the US.
The Vikram Pandit-led Citi would expand its public exchange offer to raise the additional $5.5 billion capital, it said on Thursday. The move would help the entity to boost the capital without additional Federal funds or conversion of the government's securities into common shares.
The surprise was Conde Nast Portfolio's topper for the world's best-ever CEO. It was Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motors. There is no doubt that Ford was a great entrepreneur and business visionary. But, with the hindsight of almost a century, it is worth questioning whether he was a good CEO. Ford could easily have won the accolade in his lifetime for revolutionising the personal transportation industry with the Model T.
In times like these, when the financial industry is reeling under the pressure of scepticism, communication has become the most important tool for financial services providers. Hence the flood of emails to associates, employees and investors.
Even the poster children of the current banking crisis, like Citibank's Vikram Pandit and Bank of America's Ken Lewis, may be able to grind their way through the recession like the Japanese banks did in the 1990s. But, as a consequence, Japan's economy lost a decade. The alternative -- and one the US consistently urged on the Japanese at the time -- is to bite the bullet, recognise bad assets and recapitalise.
Sanjay Jha (left) of Motorola and Vikram Pandit (below) of Citigroup are among the three who have made it to the league of top 25 highest paid men in the world.
Vikram Pandit pledged to simplify Citigroup's organisation and reshape its businesses according to "economic realities" after being named chief executive of the bank.
Citibank has regained its top position after slipping to the second slot behind Bank of America in the previous rankings released in December 2007, compiled by global mobile and internet performance solutions provider Keynote Systems. Bank of America has slipped to the second position in the latest rankings released late last night and is followed by Wells Fargo and Chase at third and fourth ranks, respectively.
An influential Democrat senator has asked the government to stop Vikram Pandit-led Citigroup from buying a new corporate jet for $50 million, as the bank is dependant on American taxpayers' money and the plane is also being bought from a foreign firm.
Subprime crisis-ridden Citigroup, global banking giant run by India-born Vikram Pandit, on Friday reported over $5 billion of loss for the first quarter of 2008 and said India contributed considerably to its increased credit costs internationally.
Days after Citi's global CEO Vikram Pandit said the group planned to reduce head-count by 52,000, there are reports that the financial major will lay off over 1,000 employees in India. The financial services company has around 10,000 employees in India.
Mobile phone maker Motorola's India-born chief Sanjay Jha has emerged America's top paid CEO, while Citigroup's Vikram Pandit tops the league among bailed out banks, a survey said.
Citigroup, apart from grappling with the write-offs and losses in its consumer banking business in the US, will also have to get its act right in other markets as well, particularly, India and Mexico.
Citi CEO Vikram Pandit in an internal memo to the staff tried to allay fears over debt and its share price, which is hovering around $1. Pandit said in the memo that 'we were profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are having our best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007.' He added that in January and February, the bank generated revenues of $19 billion before markdowns.
Buying one share of Citigroup will cost its CEO Vikram Pandit his full-year salary -- $1, which can also buy a soft drink at any neighbourhood McDonald's store.
Financial giant Citigroup, led by India-born Vikram Pandit, is in for an aggressive round of layoffs, where it will start firing about 6,500 employees from its investment banking business from Monday, media reports said.
Citigroup Inc is closing a hedge fund co-founded by chief executive officer Vikram Pandit, 11 months after the bank bought the fund management company for more than $800 million.
Besides, the Vikram Pandit-led bank has hinted at further job cuts in the coming days, after already having cut down or announced plans to bring down its workforce to below 3,00,000 employees from more than 3,75,000 at the end of 2007. In an internal mail to all its employees in the US, Citi's human resources head Paul McKinnon said on Monday that it would eliminate some 'supplemental severance payment' for the employees with 10 or more years of service.
Vikram Pandit may thank the TINA (There Is No Alternative) factor for still being in job as Citigroup CEO, as the US government reportedly did not push for his ouster in its rescue package for the troubled bank partly because there was no "obvious" successor.
The job of running crisis-ridden Citigroup is still with India-born Vikram Pandit, who revived the American behemoth's years-old tag line -- Citi Never Sleeps -- but had to seek help worth billions of dollars from the US government to keep the bank afloat.
Industry greats like Ratan Tata, Lakshmi Mittal, Narayana Murthy and P R S Oberoi have been nominated for this years Padma Vibhushan.
Some of the world's top hedge funds have been granted direct entry into the Indian stock markets, nearly three months after the Securities and Exchange Board of India imposed curbs on foreign investments through the participatory note (P-note) route.
Those who are responsible for the present mess are in charge of the clean-up.
Now that Phillip Purcell has been ousted from the top job at Morgan Stanley, the chances of "executives-in-exile," including Vikram Pandit
A career Citibanker, 'Selva' came into the spotlight as the person who rewired the financial behemoth's Indian retail operations.
Vishal Kampani has big shoes to fill as his father is close to the Ambanis, the Wadias and the Ruias, says Dev Chatterjee.
Vishal Kampani said one of the important lessons he learnt from his father was to be humble.
.jpg)
This means individuals like Vikram Pandit, former Citibank chief, can be a promoter only if he comes back to the country permanently.
There is a dearth of talent in the Indian banking industry. A testimony to this is the two new CEOs in the private sector -- Sandeep Bakhshi in ICICI Bank Ltd and Amitabh Chaudhry in AXIS Bank Ltd -- have come from the insurance sector, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Raghuram Rajan has appointed him as head of several committees soon after taking charge.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances