Vikran Pandit, the CEO of the global bastion of bailout Citigroup appeared with Charlie Rose on November 25 - and was as slippery as nailing jello to the wall as Rose attempted in vain to get an answer beyond gauzy prattle one might read from the company's glossy booklets.
Pandit, of course, blamed the problems on the company - which in fairness, he has headed for the last eleven months, past the time the risky investments and leveraging were in full swing.
Pandit evaded answering when Rose asked him who exactly put together the latest bailout/rescue plan for Citi over the weekend - obviously watching the back of the Obama laden crew such as Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin who might have had their fingerprints on the plan. Instead he blathered on about the high powered group that assembled the latest bailout of the smartest guys in the room.
When queried, after a scathing article in the New York Times about Citi's apparent ignorance - willful or otherwise, of the risk they were taking on, Pandit went into a long winded explanation about how no one could have foreseen percentage-wise - how terribly this mess would unwind - although it seems the short sellers such as John Paulson had it pegged to the tune of a multi-million dollar profit.
Pandit said basically that his reorganization plan for Citi is to get back to the mission of banking - taking deposits, lending money, helping clients. He boasted about Citi's worldwide prominence - or one might say, notoriety, as a global nexus of finance - a scary thought. He noted that the best document he had read on the solutions to the global crisis was the one released by the G-20 meeting - where he obviously indicated favoring global rules and philosopy for markets. Rose tried to pin him down as to what exactly the regulatory structure should be, with Pandit giving vague answers about debating this and coming up with solutions.
Pandit was careful especially to cover for Robert Rubin who is a director at Citi and was encouraging more risk. Pandit essentially said that Rubin offered advice - as if no one would listen to a former Goldman-Sachs poobah or Treasury Secretary as just one of many voices.
Pandit said in an unconvincing way that he could understand how furious the public is over the performance of institutions such as his - with the taxpayers paying for the risks all these really smart people took. It appeared that he was saying the expected talking points.
November 26th's show will feature Senate Banking Chair Christopher "Friend of Angelo" Dodd who will no doubt be spinning his own bailout tale.
"Citibank tells its customers to take a hike"
An October 1st interview at Wharton with Pandit:
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