Friday, January 23, 2009

Another Blunder At Citigroup

Just when you thought Citigroup couldn't make another blunder, it managed to do just that by naming failed Time Warner ex-CEO Dick Parsons as Chairman.

Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire. As bad as Bob Rubin was for the firm, Parsons may well be worse.

True, Parsons probably won't actively and knowingly mislead the board and the rest of the bank into risky CDOs and other ill-advised business decisions, as Rubin did.

Parsons might, I suppose, simply do nothing. Which, in a way, would be an improvement over Rubin.

But Parsons has no track record of succeeding at anything at Time Warner, where he replaced Gerald 'let's buy AOL' Levin. Nor at Citigroup, either, as a board member.

Citigroup has now managed to shuffle executives over the past year or so in such a way as to have no experienced commercial banker as either chairman or CEO.

Nice job, guys.
The nearby price chart for Citigroup and the S&P500Index shows that the bank's equity has declined by some 60-70% in the past year, while the S&P declined 'only' about 40%.
Does anyone really believe Parsons can do anything to help the situation?

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