DISQUS

sean · 1 year ago

That is only half of the story .... I worked in Compliance for that much beleaguered institution back in '05 - '07 ... the duplication of functions and incompatible systems were simply unbelievable.

The real untold story of that firm is that Sandy Weill was so singularly focused on increasing his own wealth via stock appreciation and through the incessant growth via acquisition that there was virtually no capital spending of any significance toward unifying the underlying architecture/plumbing from trading systems to risk management to compliance and on through to operations. Bagel stores are designed more effectively than this bank.

Behind the scenes was a Rube Goldberg machine of comic proportions. There was virtually zero system compatibility between all of the acquired platforms (Salomon, Citi, Nikko, etc.) and business areas as such there was a medieval approach toward data aggregation and reporting that was simply unmanageable.

Add to the mix a global legal structure of nearly 5,000 + separate legal entities under the Bank Holding Company and you can see how the concept of plausible deniability can really take hold. Hear no Evil, See no Evil.

Mike in the Midwest · 1 year ago

Really underscores the differences between organic vs. acquisition-led growth. I wonder if the BAC/MER merger will eventually suffer the same personell redundancy and in-fighting. At least Ken Lewis has a horrible economy as an impetus for more integration of staff/technology.

ben · 1 year ago

I don't know which side of the fence that you stand on regarding how vik is doing his job in trying to resuscitate citi, but nobody seems to be blaming sandy for any of this.

After reading his wsj biography- breaking down the walls, it seems all he wanted was the honour of being the boss of a big fancy wall street bank and did not want to put out the fires that were going on below him. Chuck, his successor was a suck up who truly new nothing about banking and wanted to leave everything status quo.

Its a shame that Jamie was not around when this happened. He seems to come across as a tough but fair negotiator and could have helped out atleast to some extent.

I have worked with bankers from Standard Chartered, HSBC and Citi. While Citi and StanChart have better management and don't fight that much, citi folks have way better access to products and services but just don't know how to use it or if they other guy will stab them in the back. I hope that they can model themselves after the private bank division who come across as very professional and know how to use the tools at their disposal

efliv · 1 year ago

I'm a first year MBA student and I recently dropped a resume for a Corporate Banking internship at Citi. A few days later, I got word that Citi canceled the interview. I guess this explains why.

Andrew Zachary · 1 year ago

In 1998, when Citi and Salomon merged their fixed-income operations, they each had 2 separate and distinct trade-entry, risk management and pricing systems. Citi had 2 systems in London and the US and they were incompatible. Salomon also had 2 separate systems in London and the US, and they, too, were incompatible. In 2003, Citi's fixed income division had made huge progress --> they only had 2 incompatible systems, one in London and one in New York. But the reduction from 4 to 2 had only been completed in late 2002.

How anyone can run a profitable fixed-income business with so many conflicting systems is beyond me. The successful traders simply ignored these problems and built their own systems to manage pricing and risk. Truly bizarre.

tito · 1 year ago

Citi should be taken out back and shot.