One on One with Vikram Pandit, CEO, Citigroup
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
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SUSIE GHARIB: After a month of uncertainty, Citigroup has a new boss tonight. He's Vikram Pandit. He was named chief executive today, replacing Charles Prince who stepped down in early November after the financial giant took billions of dollars in losses tied to the mortgage crisis. Pandit joined Citi earlier this year as head of its institutional clients group after the firm bought his $800 million hedge fund. Citi also named Sir Win Bishcoff as its new chairman. He has been the company's acting CEO. Joining us now, Vikram Pandit, Citi's new CEO. Mr. Pandit, congratulations and welcome to NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT.
VIKRAM PANDIT, CEO, CITIGROUP: Thank you so much.
GHARIB: Let me begin by asking you what's job number one at Citi?
PANDIT: Well, look, I have talked about that all day today. I am focusing on three very important things. One is productivity, two, to make sure our businesses are positioned for the future and three to make sure that we have our people, our talent are developed correctly for the businesses of the future. Those are the three things that I'm focused on for the next few months.
GHARIB: What do you see as Citi's biggest problem and how are you going to fix it?
PANDIT: Well, I'm not so sure it's about the problems. This is a wonderful company. It's one of the world's biggest and best financial institutions and franchises, not only in terms of its network, its relationships, its foot print, its capital, so it's a lot more about making sure that each and every one of our businesses is positioned for the future. You know, we've got a lot of them and one of the things I'm going to do is to make sure I take an objective and a dispassionate look at every one of our businesses, make one each one of them is positioned for the future individually and collectively. That's a big part of what I need to do.
GHARIB: And that's a big question for so many investors and a lot of people in the Wall Street community who I was talking to today, who are wondering what is Citi going to look like in five years? Will it have the same businesses? Are you going to be selling off some of the business units? What do you think at this point? I know it's early, but what do you think?
PANDIT: Look Susie, I'm four hours on the job. The one thing I can say is I've been here six months. I've enjoyed every part of it. I've gotten to know a lot of the businesses, a lot of the people, but I still have this wonderful privilege of being somebody new to the organization and I can build on all the work that's been done so far and looking at every one of our businesses and I am going to be spending a lot of time focused again on taking a look at these businesses objectively and dispassionately to make sure they're positioned well for the future.
GHARIB: I'm sure you're very sensitized to how investors feel about the stock. It's been -- Citi stock has been down something like 40 percent this year. What do you think you need to do to get investors interested again?
PANDIT: Look, I mean the financial stocks in general have had a rough ride. Recently financial stocks in general also have had issues and we've had ours and I'm not saying we're happy about those issues or where the stock is, but investors are wanting to make sure that we do focus on productivity. Productivity is what leads to profitability. Profitability leads to return. They want to make sure we're focused on positions (INAUDIBLE) businesses for the future and looking at every one of them to make sure we're in the right ones going forward and they also want to make sure we've got the best people, the best people because in this business, you know success and failure comes down to the quality of the people and those are the three things I'm focused on.
GHARIB: And investors also want to know about the dividend. Is the dividend safe for now?
PANDIT: The board made that decision OK and it is a board decision. They talked about it in early November. So I think that issue has been addressed by the board.
GHARIB: Have you talked to -- I know you said you've been on the job only four hours, but have you talked with Citi's big shareholders like Saudi Prince Walid and the Abu Dhabi investment group? Do you have any sense of what their expectations are from you as the new CEO?
PANDIT: Look, I have talked to a number of our investors and I continue to talk to them and their expectations, all of them are completely linked with what I talked about as being my priorities, which are focus on productivity, focus on positioning all our businesses for the future and focus on talent and culture. Those are the three things that are going to keep driving the profitability, growth of this business and as well as make Citi a great place in the future.
GHARIB: Will you be consulting at all with Sandy Weil? I mean as the former chairman and CEO and the guy who built the firm into a financial giant, do you see a roll for him as you try to rebuild Citi?
PANDIT: I'm going to be open to advice from a lot of different places and certainly a lot of different corners as well. So I hope to draw in the wisdom from a lot of different people to help me think through what I need to get done in the future.
GHARIB: Mr. Pandit, good luck to you and I hope you'll come back on the program and give us an update as you have some progress to tell us.
PANDIT: I appreciate this very much. Thank you so much and I do as well look forward to talking to you in the future.
GHARIB: Congratulations again. We've been talking with Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup.
