Top Citi Exec Leaving
Robert Druskin,
Citigroup's
(C) - Get Report
chief operating officer and a member of the Office of the Chairman, is retiring at the end of the year.
A 16-year Citi veteran, Druskin, 60, is the first high-level executive to leave since the company on Tuesday named Vikram Pandit as its new CEO and Sir Win Bischoff as its chairman.
"Though there is never a perfect time to move on, with the company entering an important next phase now seems right to me," Druskin said in an internal memo on Thursday.
Druskin, who had joined Smith Barney in 1991 as its chief administrative officer, had served as head of the company's corporate and investment banking since 2003. But a year ago, Citi's embattled former chairman and CEO Chuck Prince named Druskin COO in an attempt to appeal to investors at the time. Prince said that Citi would undergo a three-month review under Druskin to improve efficiency.
That review culminated in April with the bank saying that it would cut 17,000 jobs. Citi had pledged at the time to slash more than $4 billion annually in the coming years.
But Prince was ousted from the firm in November after it reported nearly $6 billion in writedowns last quarter as a result of its exposure to leveraged loan commitments, subprime mortgages and fixed-income trading. The company also said that it could take writedowns of up to $11 billion more in this quarter.
The writedowns became the icing on the cake for Prince's demise. Investors had been agitating for change at the company since at least last year -- most likely in the form of Prince's resignation or a breakup of its businesses -- as the New York banking behemoth's stock trailed miserably behind peers like
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Report
and
JPMorgan Chase
(JPM) - Get Report
.
Pandit hinted, during a Tuesday conference call discussing his appointment, that an overhaul of the bank's businesses and further job cuts may be in order. "I will undertake an objective and dispassionate review of all the businesses individually and in aggregate," he said.
Pandit said in a separate memo that Citi CFO Gary Crittenden will take on more responsibility. The
American Express
(AXP) - Get Report
veteran, who was hired by Citi in March, will have responsibility "for re-engineering and efficiency efforts" and will lead the company in a review of its structure and expenses.
"Gary has done a terrific job driving Citi's strategy and capital allocation plans as CFO, and I have complete confidence in his ability to lead a company-wide review of our structure and expense base to ensure that we operate as efficiently as possible," the memo said.
Citi shares have fallen nearly 10% since Pandit was named CEO. The stock was sliding more than 2% late Thursday.








