Uncle Vikula, who just started receiving a salary in January after choosing to make $1 a year until Citi turned a profit, may now be eligible for a very exciting three-part bonus.

Mr. Pandit will receive $10 million in deferred stock in three equal installments starting in 2013, provided the New York bank hits certain financial, organizational and staff development goals. He will receive $6.65 million in profit sharing if Citigroup hits a certain income target, paid in two installments starting in 2013. And he will receive 500,000 stock options vesting over three years beginning in May 2012.

[WSJ]

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Yes.

In fairness, Citi executives didn’t personally come up with the items for this menu, being served at 383 Greenwich. That was the job of the people who run the bank’s cafeteria, Restaurant Associates.

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No hard numbers for several weeks but one exec at the Big C thinks he’s picked up on some hints.

A Citi banker said colleagues who have been coming out of compensation meetings in the past two weeks “look like they’ve been hit by a truck.”

Of course, this could be unnecessary conclusion jumping– maybe management is telling people to keep their excitement in the lock-box, since despite getting the government out of their hair, there are still appearances to keep up. Or maybe these are their happy faces– some people don’t emote the way others do. Or maybe working at Citi has crushed their souls so hard that they look like this after every meeting, regardless of the outcome, and the only time they smile is when they are ACTUALLY about to get hit by a truck? All of these are potentially valid explanations.

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With the passing of the Dodd-Frank Bill, one pesky thing that banks have had to spent a couple hours getting in line with is the Volcker Rule, and what it means for their proprietary trading desks. Whether to spin them off, send the employees to a farm in the country where they can run around, move them to the basement or just rename the group the ‘troprietary prading’ unit, about which no one will be the wiser, the whole thing has been a bit of a headache. One person who hasn’t lost any sleep over the mandate, however, is Vikram Pandit. Because unlike his counterparts at say, Goldman, who’ve clutched their pearls and felt faint at the thought of a world without prop, Vickles got behind the rule before it was even a twinkle in Volcker’s eye.

“It’s all about clients,” Pandit told the New Yorker. The biggest mistake Citi and other banks made during the boom, he said, was coming to believe that investing and trading on their own account, rather than on behalf of their clients, was a basic aspect of banking. Even before the Dodd-Frank bill was passed, Pandit was closing down some of Citi’s proprietary businesses and trying to sell others. “Proprietary trading is not the core of what banking is about,” he said. In place of a business model that was largely dependent on making quick gains, he is trying to revive a banking culture based on cultivating long-term relationships with Citi’s customers. “Once you make your business all about relationships, conflicts of interest are not an issue,” he said.

Obviously he’s too modest to say it so we will: Vikram wasn’t just complying with the Volcker Rule before it was passed– Vikram invented the Volcker Rule, which shouldn’t even be called the Volcker Rule, it should be the Pandit Precedent, or something. Whatever. You’ll be hearing from his lawyers, Paul, you weasel. Tyler and Cameron Winkelvi know what we’re talking about.

Wall Street, Investment Bankers, And Social Good [New Yorker via Heidi Moore]

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Here in the United States, David Hasselhoff is seen as the guy who gets drunk and eats cheeseburgers off the floor. To put it mildly, he doesn’t get much respect. Over in Germany, however, he’s the second coming of Christ and is treated like a prince. Until recently, Vikram Pandit never knew what it felt like to be loved and hated in equal measure, and didn’t really understand how hard The Hoff had it. Yesterday, at the G20 Summit, however, he hinted that he’s starting to relate.

At a gathering here of top executives in the G-20 Business Summit, a parallel gathering alongside the meeting of leaders from the Group of 20 economic powers, Mr. Pandit suggested that the environment for financial companies in the United States was rather frosty. “I kind of feel like I’m living in parallel universes,” Mr. Pandit said in a forum that included Peter Sands of Standard Chartered Bank and Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group. “I’m here in Korea and I feel this warmth and need and the sense of trying to have a dialogue with each other, but then when I get back to my real universe, it’s cold in that universe.”

Pandit Finds More Love (For Banks) Abroad [Dealbook]

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As you know, Wednesday night was a big night for Uncle Vik. Despite the fact that Jay-Z was a no show, Pandito had a ball while being honored at a gala dinner benefiting the New York Police & Fire Widows’ & Children’s Benefit Fund. During the charity auction part of the evening, the Citi CEO bid $9,000 for a day of training at the NYC Fire Department, which he very well could’ve selfishly used himself. Rather than being put through the paces, however, generous Vikram will said that he will be raffling off the prize to one very lucky Citi employee, so watch out for one of those massive lottery wheels in the lobby soon.

And that’s not all.

…Pandit has experience putting out fires—at least of the financial variety…[and] he smiled at the idea he’s a firefighter himself. “We are done with that,” he said. Citi shareholders, used to getting hosed, will be pleased.

Four Alarms For Pandit [WSJ]

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Despite the fact that he is a rolly polly ball of smiles that had the good sense to sell his hedge fund to Citi for a billion dollars, as the CEO of the Treasury’s special needs child, Vikram Pandit does not have a lot to look forward to, other than the day he “makes more than $1.” So when the word got out several weeks ago that he was going to have the opportunity to meet one of his idols, he got pretty psyched Naturally, the idol I speak of is Mr. Jay-Z.

Both Pandit and Jay-Z were being honored at the New York Police and Fire Widow’s and Children’s Benefit Fund (Vikram, for this “ongoing support of the fund and NYC’s first responders” and Jay-Z for “his efforts on behalf of the Fund as the sole beneficiary of last year’s 9/11 ‘Answer the Call’ benefit concert”), and VP would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited/scared. What would he say to the guy? That Jay-Z’s music got him through the crisis? That whenever he was feeling particularly low in Fall 2008, he’d shut the door and blast 99 Problems? That when he had to go into meetings with the government he’d play Big Pimpin’ on the way over, to remind himself that, yeah, despite what the haters say, he’s a fuckin’ pimp. That during one memorable Town Hall with employees, in an attempt to boost morale, he simply played “Run This Town” over the PA system?** Or cut through the bull shit and state simply, “You’re my muse”?

Or would he want to talk shop? Knowing that Jay-Z is a client of Goldman Sachs and had recently sat down with Warren Buffett, Vikram realized Mr. Jay might be interested in hearing about the changes Citi has made to get back to the core business and hey, maybe VP could learn something.

And finally, if things went well, would tonight be the night to float the idea of them working on something together, based on the lyrics to a little ditty Vik has been working on for some time, or would he email Jay-Z the next day telling him how great it was to meet and “also, if you’re interested…”

Vikram had no idea and was no closer to an answer by the time he arrived at the Hilton Hotel, butterflies raging. And it is with a heavy heart that we must relay that the world will never know, either. Because according to a spokeswoman for the event, Mr. Jay-Z accepted his award via a previously taped segment. And while he may be a hero, he should also know that last night he made the biggest mistake of his life, and can kiss any potential collaborations good-bye.

**Winking at Dick Parsons on the “her ass could swallow up a g-string” line

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Also, Vikram Pandit has done “a fabulous job.”

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Earlier we mentioned that after getting his hopes up vis-a-vis earning more than a buck a year, the Citi board had decided its commander in chief would not get a raise from his current salary. Such is not the case.

The part about the $1/year is true. But, a spokeswoman for Citi tells us, it was Vikram’s choice. The board wanted to toss him a few more bones and he refused. Just the kinda guy he is.

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Apparently, yes. We’re told the “majority if not everyone” from the Houston energy office, headed by Stephen Trauber and said to be considered “the best division at UBS,” walked out last night and is headed for Citi.

Additionally: “You’ve got to figure this is a big fist in the v for UBS and a decent win for Citi, long regarded as the bottom tier in that department (even behind the energy boutiques).”

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