Time to chuck Chuck?

4 October 2007

1 minute read

It's at times like these that Citigroup chief exec Chuck Prince may come to lament the ambiguity of his name.

Prince stands accused of letting the Citigroup banking juggernaut career out of control on his watch. On Monday the bank revealed more than $3bn of losses, resulting principally from leveraged loans ($1.4bn), write-downs on mortgage backed securities ($250m), write-downs on CDOs ($250m), and miscellaneous trading mistakes ($600m).

With Deutsche and UBS also in confessional mode when it comes to losses, Citigroup isn't the only bank to have done a few things wrong. But Prince is coming in for flak, along with Michael Klein and Tom Maheras, co-heads of Citigroup's markets and banking businesses.

Should Chuck and chums go the same way as Huw Jenkins, the ex-chief exec of UBS, who was swiftly deposed earlier this week? Or are they merely innocent victims of unpredictable markets?

AUTHORSarah Butcher

Global Editor

Sa
Sarah, editor eFinancialCareer
12 October 2007
For another take on the topic, it's worth reading this on Bloomberg - http://www.bloomberg.com/ap... - Deutsche Bank reportedly says Chuck Prince is depressing Citigroup's share price. If true, this is unlikely to go down well with Citi bankers who bought into (or were forced into) Sandy Weill's drive for employee stock ownership.
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Anonymous
11 October 2007
The subtle debate is whether Citi just used the Q3 to write off additional losses otherwise resulted from past and future 2007 operations.
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An
Anonymous
9 October 2007
Citigroup is ruled by technocrats rather than risk takers. Same goes for UBS.
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Ci
Citi boy
4 October 2007
Playing the blame game will get us nowhere. This is a case of coming clean and getting ready for better things to come. 4Q earnings are likely to be a lot better. 3Q trading losses were an aberration. This is a big bank, it suffers bigger pain.
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