Citigroup (NYSE: C) CEO Vikram Pandit was a famous hedge-fund manager. After Citi bought his company, he was in a position to move into the top job. It is lucky he was moved into the corner office months ago as one of the funds Citi picked up from the company he sold them is being closed.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Pandit personally reaped at least $165 million when Citigroup bought Old Lane in July 2007." Nice work if you can get it.

The news may say little about Pandit's money management skills as he has been away from the running of the fund, Old Lane, for some time. It does, however, put the spotlight on him once again at a time when his ability to run Citi is being questioned by the company's shareholders.

Pandit was brought in as an agent of change, no matter how awful and overused that term is. So far, he has done absolutely nothing to deserve that description. Yesterday, Citi stock fell below $20 for the first time since March. Investors had hoped he would begin to sell of some of the bank's less critical assets to build the the capital base of the firm.

Instead, he has acted pretty much the same as his predecessor Chuck Prince. The share price points to that.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor a 247wallst.com

Humilation for Citigroup's (C) Pandit originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Vikram S. Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup (NYSE: C), got his start at the big bank by selling them his hedge fund business, Old Lane. A few months after the transaction, Pandit go the top job, but the business he sold Citi is in trouble. How humiliating.

According to The New York Times, "Citigroup said late Friday that it was planning to restructure Old Lane after 'substantially all' its outside investors withdrew their money." The bank bought Pandit's company for $800 million.

Another black eye for the Citigroup board? Absolutely. How can the governance body of a financial firm not look at the key asset that its top CEO candidate brought to the company?

While the news makes Pandit look bad, it makes the Citi board look like boobs. It is essentially the same board that let Chuck Prince stay on too long while he screwed up the bank and let it invest in mortgage-backed paper. Now it has picked a CEO who cannot even do a good job of managing his own investors' money.

Douglas A McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Citigroup's CEO has hedge fund trouble originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 03 May 2008 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This morning Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) CEO Chuck Prince declared that he would fire 73% more people than he had announced last month. If you ask me for the reason, I'd say so that he can finance a $600 million pay package for a new hire.

Citigroup's biggest problem is that its costs have been growing faster than its revenues, 23% and 15% respectively. The solution, announced last month, was to fire 15,000 people. But according to The New York Times today, Citigroup plans to bring that total to 8% of its workforce, or 26,000.

Meanwhile, Prince has reportedly been in talks to acquire a hedge fund, Old Lane, for $600 million. The idea is that former Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) executive Vikram Pandit, who runs Old Lane, would come along for the ride and join Citigroup as head of its Alternative Assets unit.

I am wondering whether Citigroup can find a less expensive way to hire talent -- maybe developing its own managers. In pre-market, Citigroup is up a mere 7 cents -- not much of a market reward for all that additional blood.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns shares of Citigroup and has no financial interest in Morgan Stanley.

Citigroup's pool of blood: now 73% bigger! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.