Poor Vikram Pandit can’t catch a break. Despite Citi stock being up almost 44% over 2010, and profits and revenues on the rise as credit losses decrease, Pandit seems to get blamed for everything. In January, the Indian police reportedly filed a case against Pandit and other senior Citi executives because of an alleged $70 million fraud at a Citibank branch in a New Delhi suburb. Yet more bizarre – the fraud was supposedly reported to the police by Citi itself. But an accusation made in a bar menu in the East Village in New York City poses perhaps the biggest threat to Pandit’s good-guy reputation. He’s apparently lost Santa Claus’s retirement funds.
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR, February 2011:
In last month’s Front End, we reported on a fraud case filed in India against Citi. We are happy to add that the parties that filed the complaint have since unconditionally withdrawn their case.