By Patrick Clark 10/26/12 12:04pm

doublespeak

World Economic Forum/Alexandre Campbell

Quit Now, Quit Later or Be Canned: See, Leaving Citi Really Was Vikram Pandit’s Decision

We’re not sure that anyone ever believed that Vikram Pandit was acting purely of his own volition when he stepped down as chief executive officer of Citigroup earlier this month, whatever Mr. Pandit or Citi Chairman Mike O’Neill said—now there’s less reason to believe the official account of Mr. Pandit’s departure.

According to Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Susanne Craig at The New York Times, Mr. Pandit met with Mr. O’Neill on the day before he resigned, and presented with a choice between three already prepared news releases: Read More

By Patrick Clark 9/26/12 2:04pm

open book

bair

UPDATED: Sheila Bair Has 170 or So Words For Vikram Pandit

Last month, we noted that former FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair had some choice words regarding Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit in her new book, Bull By the Horns. After Citi said he was stepping down in a statement released today, Ms. Bair offered six more words to her assessment:

“This was a very positive move,” she said in an interview with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt on Bloomberg Radio.

You can read her comments on Mr. Pandit from her book below. Read More

By Patrick Clark 7/30/12 4:49pm

Who Am I?

nobody knows dimon

Jamie Dimon Is Going to Have to Do a Lot Better Than $5.8 Billion if He Wants the World to Know His Name

Sixty Minutes and Vanity Fair asked a bunch of Americans who Jamie Dimon is—two-thirds didn’t know, and another 20 percent of respondents believed him to be either an X-Games skateboarder, daredevil motorcyclist or Texas congressman. This is a funny and sad if not unsurprising thing about Americans, but more importantly a potential point of embarrassment for he of the salt-and-peppery good looks and formerly gold-standard risk management chops. (“What kind of trading losses do I need to suffer before they know me!”) Well, Mr. Dimon can rest easy: Americans don’t know the names of the leaders of any of the country’s biggest banks*, and to prove it, we conducted our own informal survey**:  Read More

By Drew Grant 9/19/11 11:41am

The Poors

Homeless or NYU student? (via Flickr)

New York Social Diary Exposes Trendy Homeless Panhandlers of Fifth Avenue

Another reason for the Michael’s-dining, Bergdorf Goodman window-shoppers of Fifth Avenue to hate the homeless: they are actually rich, college-going liars in disguise. Thank goodness for New York Social Diary’s David Patrick Columbia, who took it upon himself to investigate the curious case of a panhandling young lady who has claimed for nine months now to be seven months pregnant. Read More