Recently, Mike Mayo has gotten into a bit of public with Citigroup. To recap, a few weeks back, the analyst started telling clients and whoever else will listen that the bank is inflating its profits and needs to a write down $50 billion of deferred-tax assets. For the offense, Citi apparently froze Mayo out, denying him any and all access to Vikram Pandit. This, being the worst thing you can do to a person, made Mayo hit harder, musing that maybe we can’t trust Citi at all. Somewhere along the way Charlie Gasparino got wind of all this and made it public, meaning Citi had to be all, “Mike Mayo? LOVVVVE him. There’s no freeze out, Vik’s just been really busy finalizing his fantasy football team, is all.” Citi has graciously extended an offer for Mayo to come over on October 1, which he’s accepted, at which time they probably think a little face time and sweet talking from Uncle Vik will be all that’s necessary to get Michael to upgrade Citi to “fucking awesome” in his book. According to Charlie Gasparino, that may not be the case. Mayo’s next note will more likely be along the lines of “we are about two quarters from consigning this dump to the scrap heap of corporate history.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Lest there be any confusion about what they do over there all day.

8.26 Citi [PDF]

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From: VikramPandit
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 5:36 PM
To: VikramPandit
Subject: Let’s Keep Going!

Dear Colleagues,

In New York, summer can be a time of year when things slow down. But as I talk to our people and visit Citi locations around the world, it is very clear to me that we have been keeping up a good pace throughout this great institution. Having held Town Halls in Mexico City, St. Petersburg, Hanoi and Singapore over the past few months, I continue to be struck by your enthusiasm and dedication. I want to share with you some of the things we have accomplished together recently.

The innovation and first-in-class service that distinguishes Regional Consumer Banking were evident across our regions. In the U.S., we announced the first-ever implementation of MasterCard inControl. It will enhance our cardholders’ experience through increased transparency, greater spending confidence, and more secure and efficient financial management – a great example of Responsible Finance at work. We opened up a world of exciting possibilities for our customers with the well-received “Stories” advertising campaign.

In Russia and Poland, a new mobile banking platform moved us closer to being the world’s Digital Bank. We teamed up with another great global brand, Virgin Money Australia, in a strategic partnership that offers customers two new credit cards and an online savings account. In Mexico, our customers made Impulsora de Fondos Banamex number one in the market, with $20 billion in managed assets and an impressive 42 percent annual growth rate. And just this week in China, Citi became the first international bank to open a full-service retail branch, complete with smart banking technology, in the Shanghai Metro.

In the area of Securities and Banking, we won new clients while strengthening existing relationships. In the U.S. Citi became a key player in one of the most closely-watched transactions when we were mandated as lead arranger and administrative agent for General Motors’ $5 billion revolving credit facility, and we will play a lead role in the Initial Public Offering. Continuing our investment in Asia Pacific and expanding our presence in a growing market, we took a seat on the Indonesian Stock Exchange and began equities brokerage operations in the country.

Citi acted as a financial advisor to South Africa media giant Naspers on the sale of its interest in Mail.ru, the leading Russian Internet communication company, and its investment in Digital Sky Technologies. Citi was also sole global coordinator and joint bookrunner on Naspers’ debut $700 million bond issue. As a joint bookrunner on the Republic of Chile’s return to the capital markets, a landmark $1.52 billion debt offering, we played a pivotal role in the country’s post-earthquake reconstruction plan.

Global Transaction Services continued to show why it is the envy of all its competitors. After a competitive review of qualified banks, BP named Citi as Paying Agent and Corporate Trustee for its $20 billion oil spill compensation fund. And we reached a significant milestone in July when Citi extended its industry-leading commercial card issuance to its 50th country, South Africa.

We also completed several divestitures in Citi Holdings, reducing its total assets by $9 billion. And the U.S. Treasury completed sale of an additional tranche of Citigroup common stock, reducing its total stake of Citi’s shares to 18 percent, and taking another step toward its stated goal of exiting its position by year end.

Going forward, there is every indication that we will remain busy on all fronts, whether it is opening new branches, issuing debt or underwriting IPOs. Our business has good balance, especially in light of our longstanding presence in the emerging markets.

You will also be pleased to know that we will continue to show the character of our company in many other ways. Over the past months, we declared a foreclosure moratorium for homeowners affected by the oil spill in the Gulf region in the U.S., made a $250,000 donation to create 1,400 new full-time jobs in Haiti’s apparel industry and launched the $100 million Citi Community Capital Fund to preserve affordable housing in New York City.

Rest assured, this is not a comprehensive list, but it does indicate how busy you have been and I appreciate your hard work. If you have been able to take some time off, I hope you feel recharged. If you haven’t done so yet, I hope you can get some time and come back refreshed so we can make the rest of 2010 just as successful as it has been so far. Let’s keep going!

Vikram

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Only half-serious, of course (though Vickles does love a charity case). What the bank does care about is having its wealthy clients’ hard-earned money pissed away by a bunch of pissants who need to be put on a leash.

Citigroup is testing a website to let millionaires’ children manage their allowances, while alerting parents and bankers when scions blow through cash too quickly. Heirs to Citigroup’s wealthiest clients can log in to parent-funded accounts for discretionary spending, investments and “one-click giving” to charities. The site was developed by Tile Financial LLC, founded by former New York Stock Exchange finance chief and Bear Stearns Cos. analyst Amy Butte.

Citi is doing this for itself, of course, but also because they want to see these kids succeed and grow up to be clients of the bank just like mommy and daddy. And hey, being responsible about money isn’t so horrible right? Doesn’t building a portfolio sound just as much fun as blowing rails off a stripper’s ass?

Young heirs can get spending accounts linked to debit cards, and they can craft investment portfolios in consultation with a parent’s private banker. Tile also offers one-click giving to pre-approved charities, including Rainforest Action Network and the Global Fund for Children. Butte said she decided to create the site partly to help parents talk to their children about money. She got the idea after seeing her husband, a money manager, stumble while discussing finances with her four stepchildren, ages 17 to 23. In a blog item on Huffington Post in March, she wrote that most adults find it easier to talk about sex than money. “Young adults have no place to go to learn about money and learn about finance, particularly in a tone and a medium that they can relate to,” she said.

Having said that, Citi is a full service bank and Vikram tells a great birds and bees story, if anyone needs some help, he’s here for ya.

Citigroup Millionaires’ Heirs Get Website for Allowances, One-Click Gifts [Bloomberg]

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The delicate flowers at JPMorgan may have canceled their daily note but you can’t hold down Vikram’s little soldiers.

“Despite working and living conditions becoming more repressive by the day in Moscow,” Citigroup’s trading and sales staff is “on ground in full effect,” John Heisel, an equity sales trader at Citigroup Inc. in Moscow, said by phone yesterday.

Moscow Fires Curb Bond Trading as Alfa, JPMorgan Bankers Escape [Bloomberg]

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Things just fall through the cracks sometimes. They had a lot going on that day.
“The bank will pay $75 million to settle regulatory charges that it failed to disclose $40 billion in subprime exposure to investors in the second and third quarters of 2007, according to people familiar with the matter.The settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission won’t charge the giant bank with fraud, but rather material omission of disclosure requirements, the people said. The SEC is expected to indicate that Citi didn’t intentionally mislead investors, they added.” [WSJ]

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Pack your bags, Timbo. It’s been real. In other good-for-Vickles news, analyst are predicting that Citi will post profits of of a whole nickel per share tomorrow, in which case you can probably expect something like this to go down in the C-suite in about 18 hours.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

One junior rainmaker anticipating good things to come?

“Bonus paid date at Citi delayed until the 15th of August for all analyst programs in order to do more intelligence on competitors and remain competitive.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

To research his role in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, Shia LaBeouf spent a good deal of time at John Thomas Financial, an Encino branch of Charles Schwab and Goldman Sachs. It was there he learned how to stick $20,000 in an online brokerage account and turn it into $450,00-ish in a matter of months, wow the shit out of Lloyd Blankfein in the 47th round of interviews, and insider tips for passing Level I of the CFA. You know what he never did? Ask any of the guys he was shadowing about their feelings. Same goes for Penn Badgely, who spent some time on the Citi trading floor to prep for his role as a junior analyst in Margin Call (where he learned that “young traders sport ‘nice clothes that were not terribly tailored’ and that that the term ‘bucks’ means millions”). That’s because these two whippersnappers only care about the surface. They’re not interested in drilling down to the person underneath that suit and the fifties still stuck to your ass from the weekend. One guy who is? Kevin Spacey. He cares, deeply.

“I am trying to humanize bankers,” said Kevin Spacey, the Academy Award-winning actor, who plays a senior trader in Margin Call. “Everyone talks about facts, figures and debt. I was more interested in what they were feeling.”

Some of his deepest insights, he said, came from conversations with senior Wall Street bankers and traders. During the discussions, he asked: “What was it like to be at a friend’s wedding, or a bar, when you knew that the whole house of cards was about to collapse?”

“I listened with some degree of surprise about the weight of having knowledge that others don’t, how that shifted relationships — what guys couldn’t even tell their wives at the height of the turmoil,” Mr. Spacey said. Many of the traders, he discovered, were angry about some decisions that helped assure the survival of their firm but also destroyed longstanding bonds of trust between them, their clients and their colleagues.

Some of Spacey’s empathy may come from the fact that he, too, knows what it’s like to destroy the trust of a client and colleague and lose, if not billions, thousands of dollars in one fell swoop. Of course, it’s not all feelings that’ll go into making this flick. It’s important that the actors truly know their trade, so if anyone thinks they can get Demi Moore up to speed (she accepted the role of chief risk officer right before shooting started, leaving “less time for extensive research), the help would be greatly appreciated.

Kevin Spacey Film Explores Humanity On Wall Street [NYT]

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It’s been relatively quiet on the Debrahlee Lorezana front the past week but for some reason– I don’t know, maybe something happened over the weekend that just made Vickles snap and decide he’d had it with this chick– the bank has just put out the following statement re: T’s on an S:

“Unlike Ms. Lorenzana, Citibank does not intend to try this case in the media and we reiterate that her termination was based on poor performance. Although we can’t speak to her previous attention-seeking activities, her current attempts to gain personal publicity are as transparent as her legal claims. We remain confident that when all of the facts and documentation are presented, the claim will be dismissed.”

*Oh, actually she filed this over the weekend. I still like new tone– catty ass bitches.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker