FDIC, Bair Give Citigroup a Hard Time

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Oh, Sheila Bair. Leave poor Citigroup (C Quote) CEO Vikram Pandit alone.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is taking issue with the findings of a recent management review of Citi, in which CEO Pandit and a majority of his team got high marks for their running of the firm. Apparently some FDIC officials have "expressed doubts at the rigor of the report," adding that the agency may give the report little weight at its next regulatory assessment of the company, the Journal says.

The review, conducted this summer for Citi's board by consulting firm Egon Zehnder International, was requested by the U.S. government after its stress tests of the nation's largest banks in the spring.

Perhaps Chairwoman Bair and the FDIC need to take a step back and let the company and management run the business.

It's worth noting that the FDIC approved Egon Zehnder for the job. After nixing a previous consulting firm that the bank suggested, Bair and the FDIC then gave Citi a list of "approved firms acceptable," that included Egon Zehnder, according to the Journal.

While Pandit garnered favorable reviews from the report, two other Citi executives got less-ringing assessments -- Vice Chairman Lewis Kaden and Chief Administrative Officer Don Callahan. Kaden's responsibilities include Citigroup's legal, human resources and government relations departments, while Callahan heads the bank's operations and technology.

The company is reviewing whether to make any changes to management as a result of the report, the Journal says.