For a man who was supposedly doomed to fail, Vikram Pandit has done a pretty good job in transforming Citigroup. Few, if any, bank chief executives have faced a tougher set of challenges over the past two years or been the subject of as much criticism. He has come through many battles, and has many more to come. But perhaps it’s time to start giving Pandit some credit. Clive Horwood reports.
"BEING A SUPERMARKET is not a strategy."
That simple sentence sums up everything that went wrong with Citigroup, and everything that Vikram Pandit is trying to do to make Citi one of the world’s best banks again.
Citi isn’t back just yet, but it’s on its way. First-quarter 2010 earnings, announced in mid-April, were some of the most impressive in the industry. Citigroup produced net income of $4.1 billion. Compare that with Bank of America, which is widely thought to have emerged from the crisis faster and stronger than Citi, but made $3.2 billion over the same period. Or Barclays, a bank that supposedly came out of the crisis a clear winner, but has first-quarter net income of about $2.2