More management changes at Citigroup
06 Apr 2009
Citigroup Inc. has named interim boss Mike Corbat as the permanent chief executive of Citi Holdings, the business that includes the riskier assets at the big banking company. In a separate statement, Eric Aboaf was named Citigroup's treasurer.
In January, Citigroup announced it would split its operations into two units, Citicorp and Citi Holdings. The move is being made to separate the more traditional banking units from the riskier operations that have led to mounting losses at the New York-based bank. (See: Citi to split into two after $8.29 billion fourth-quarter loss)
Corbat had been interim chief of Citi Holdings since 16 January and has worked for more than 25 years at Citigroup, most recently as CEO of global wealth management. Gary Crittenden, who had been Citigroup's CFO, was named chairman of Citi Holdings last month.(See: After board shake-up, Citigroup shuffles top management)
Citi Holdings houses $850 billion of assets that New York-based Citigroup plans to sell or wind down. These include the Smith Barney brokerage, which is merging into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley's brokerage, the CitiFinancial and CitiMortgage finance operations, the Primerica insurance unit, and the Nikko Cordial unit in Japan. It also houses $300.8 billion of troubled assets in which the US government agreed in a November bailout to share losses. Citigroup has taken $45 billion of taxpayer money.
Citi Holdings is separate from Citicorp, whose $1.1 trillion of assets includes businesses the bank wants to keep. These include retail and investment banking, transaction services and Citi Private Bank.
Aboaf will report to recently named CFO Ned Kelly and manage Citigroup's balance sheet and will be responsible for ensuring strong liquidity, asset and liability management and optimization of our capital structure. He will work closely with all of the bank's businesses within both Citicorp and Citi Holdings to support their funding needs and optimize capital deployment. He is also expected to work closely with external regulators and rating agencies.
Aboaf is a summa cum laude graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and holds a Masters of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Citigroup has been hard hit by the credit crisis and recession. Analysts expect Citigroup to post a sixth consecutive quarterly loss for the first quarter.
