Baseball

Citigroup Can't Keep Phibro

Exactly correct. The thing is while the focus has been on CEO bonuses, it is the self serving classes beneath that corporate level which is where so much waste in fact is.This high level of risk was introduced to Citi when the old Salomaon Smith Barney guard came in and used the banks cheap deposit base and customers to turn the institution into a hedge fund. Does an area like Custodial Bank Securities Lending require a Princeton Graduate who earns well in excess of a million dollars to run the department? (This was a level of income which exceeded the cost of the entire group before his appointment). Clearly not until the Smith Barney Salomon group took over. Now there are customers holding SIV investments with potential losses up yhe proverbial ying yang. The pay scale for what should be a big boring bank is far out of sync beneath Mr Pandit.Bring back the old Citibank bankers and oust the Managing Director class. Then you will have a boring but safe, sound, profitable organization.One that really cares about its Shareholders, customers and employees, rather than the gibberish they claim.

Is Securities Lending Starting to Dry Up a Little?

I have to laugh at a quote from the Citibank Head of Securities Lending. The highest paid executive of any bank, who ran the place into the ground ,and whose major initiates were to do Conduit Lending,and have customer reinvestment proceeds invested in SIVs. In other words enrich Citi bank through self dealing. In addition, this person appointed more Managing Directors and directors than people to do the function properly.Junkets back and forth accross the pond were set up for employee vacations, and his own office was in a different location so as not to be close with the people who worked for him. He was there only to provide liquidity for his Bank Dealer buddies and could care less about his Customers. A joke and the major reason why management of that firm has failed.