Sandy Weill, former chief poohbah of Citigroup, tells us that he had nothing to do with the implosion of the sprawling behemoth. Everything he did was right, it was his successor, Chuck Prince, who screwed up (well maybe he was an itty bitty bit responsible by virtue of recommending Prince). Oh, and it’s Jamie Dimon fault too for being so pushy about succession.
Now in fairness, the story about Weill at the New York Times does give a bit of color to the problems Citi has had, and why they might indeed be attributable to Weill. But this is still a case example of the dangers of the Times’ notion of “fairness”. “Fair” in American media means you tell both sides of the story. But what if some of the arguments made on one side are rubbish? Yes, both sides no doubt have a case to make, but don’t media outlets like the Times at least have a duty to make sure that the arguments presented are valid?
First object lesson:
“Sandy will forever be identified with Citigroup,” says Michael Armstrong, a Citi board member and a former chief of AT&T. “He put everything he had into its creation.”
Yves here. Lordie. Anyone with an operating brain cell will hopefully know to discount the praise of a former board member (translation: someone who got cash and perks directly from Sandy and is thus hardly objective). But Armstrong is a special case. Michael Armstrong was one of the most overrated CEOs in the history of America, and that takes some doing. He was straight out of central casting. He did $105 billion of cable acquisitions, and the only way the math would work was if you delivered telephony via the acquired cable operations. He had committed to doing it in two years, when the needed technology (voice over internet protocol) at that juncture had never been deployed outside a lab. Oh, and if you did somehow figure out how to scale the technology, you’d also need to increase the number of installation staff (and I don’t mean those call center people, I mean the kind who come to your house with equipment attached to their belt) by 50% in that timeframe. My moles (professionals serving AT&T top brass who are on a first name basis with corporate psychopathy) told me that the backstabbing and intrigue at AT&T corporate made the French court look good. I told everyone I knew in May 1999 to sell AT&T. No one listened.
That is a long-winded way of saying an endorsement from Armstrong isn’t just meaningless, it’s a negative indicator.
But this is the part that frosts my cake, where the Times itself repeats Weill PR uncritically:
Mr. Weill built his wealth, status and power by creating what was once the world’s largest bank
The headline picks up that theme: “Citi’s Creator, Alone With His Regrets.” And as we will see later, his regrets are very thin indeed.
Even though this is merely the subtext of the article, it positions Weill. And various studies have found that the more importance you ascribe to someone’s role, the more favorably they are judged (people correctly allow for a degree of difficulty factor).
This is utter bullshit, and I am tired of corporate conglomerateurs being called “creators” or “builders”. You may not like what Sam Walton or Bill Gates created, but their achievements are of a completely different order and have held up better as companies than those of Weill.
And most important, he is inaccurately being given credit for Citibank, later Citicorp, which at the time of the Citigroup-Travelers deal, came out on top, and John Reed rather than Weill was presumed to be the eventual chairman. But Weil mounted a successful coup.
I had Citibank as a client in the 1980s, and even though it was a mess even then, it was an impressive and intriguing mess, like an extremely accomplished actor that regularly goes on binges and tears up hotel rooms. The bank had people who were on average considerable brighter and more energetic than the the commercial banking norm, and also pretty meritocratic by the standards of that era (if you were a minority, a foreign national, or female, Citi was a better career bet than most other places). It was reflexively innovative (not that that made an ounce of strategic sense, Citi would spend the time and money to innovate, and in particular, break new paths on the regulatory front, and the fast followers would get much of the advantage of Citi’s efforts at a fraction of the cost). Citi created the interest rate and FX swaps businesses, and John Reed came to prominence by computerizing Citi’s operations, a massive task (and Citi was a path-breaker again, well ahead of its peers). But the place was freewheeling for a bank and thus in a good bit of disarray. The fact that it reorganized every two years or so was no help (one of the side effects was that it was in many cases well nigh impossible to track the performance of businesses and products over time).
And it was Walter Wriston, not Weill, who had the vision of the Citi that eventually came to be. Wriston saw Citi as a globe-spanning enterprise, with a bank offering financial products of every type to every imaginable customer. His early 1980s strategy was “Five Is”: Institutional Banking, Individual Banking, Investment Banking, Insurance, and Information. Even then, he wanted to be not just in insurance and investment banking, but information based services (and not just Bloomberg imitators; one would have restructured the international trade business, but politics within McKinsey undermined it when the folks at Citi were keen to move it forward).
In other words, Weill and his backers exaggerate his role considerably. Weil was a very talented deal guy, with a real nose for value, a tough negotiator who was far more disciplined than most in his field. He developed a detailed protocol for integrating acquired companies, a critical task that eludes most buyers. So his accomplishments within that field were quite impressive, and he should be given his due there (reader no doubt know that every study every done has found most acquisitions fail, as in destroy value).
Now despite puffing Weill up more than he deserves, the piece reads like an artfully drafted reference letter, where the writer actually is not that keen about the candidate, but uses a deliberate disconnect (say enthusiastic tone versus little substance) to signal his ambivalence. Thus Sandy fans may think the piece was pretty favorable, while a more detached reader could come away with a different take.
Let’s look at some of the substance:
“The dream, the mirage has always been the global supermarket, but the reality is that it was a shopping mall,” says Chris Whalen, editor of The Institutional Risk Analyst, of Citi’s evolution over the last decade. “You can talk about synergies all day long. It never happened.”
Citi’s troubles are well chronicled: a failure to integrate its disparate parts worldwide or to keep tabs on risky investments and free-wheeling operations.
Yves here. These problems were intrinsic to Wriston’s vision, but they got worse and worse as the bank got bigger and bigger. Back to the piece:
And Mr. Weill vigorously defends his record, rebutting critics who say that Citi was an unstable creation.
Judah Kraushaar, a hedge fund manager and former banking analyst who worked with Mr. Weill on his autobiography, said that Citi’s problem wasn’t that it was unmanageable, but that it lacked enough good managers — and that Mr. Weill was a good manager.
“When he left, the company had all the hallmarks of how Sandy ran a business: it was lean; it didn’t have a bloated balance sheet,” says Mr. Kraushaar. “Had he picked a different successor things could have turned out very differently.”
Yves here. The use of this quote, in context, comes off as a subtle bit of hatchet work, since it creates the impression that it is hard to come up with objective sourcesthat are positive about Weill’s record. Note the first was Armstrong, who is beholden to Weill. Kraushaar is also in his orbit.
The article does have lots of sympathy building patter:
One wall is devoted to framed magazine and newspaper articles chronicling his career. A Fortune magazine clipping from 2001 declares Citi one of its “10 Most Admired Companies.”
On another wall hangs a hunk of wood — at least 4 feet wide — etched with his portrait and the words “The Shatterer of Glass-Steagall.” The memento is a reference to the repeal in 1999 of Depression-era legislation; the repeal overturned core financial regulations, allowed for the creation of Citi and helped feed the Wall Street boom.
Elsewhere in Mr. Weill’s office, a bust honors him as Chief Executive magazine’s “C.E.O. of the Year” in 2002. There are pictures of him with world leaders like Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro. There is also one of his humble childhood home in Brooklyn — a reminder of how far he has come.Elsewhere in Mr. Weill’s office, a bust honors him as Chief Executive magazine’s “C.E.O. of the Year” in 2002. There are pictures of him with world leaders like Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro. There is also one of his humble childhood home in Brooklyn — a reminder of how far he has come.
Yves here. This sort of thing puts me off, but I imagine some take it at face value. And we have this:
Starting in late 2007, he began approaching some members of Citi’s board about returning to help with its recovery. He tried first when the board was looking to replace Mr. Prince as C.E.O., and later after Vikram Pandit got the job. At the time, Mr. Weill imagined that he would be welcomed. “I had 50 years of experience,” he says. “I think I was a pretty good student of the markets, and the business. I had a good feel of things. I felt that just because I retired didn’t mean my brain went to mush. Maybe I could help.”
No one responded to his offers.
The rejection stung. Citigroup had for so long been central to his life. It was hard to accept that he had no control or influence over it anymore. “It’s very hurtful. Even though he says, ‘No, no, it’s fine,’ ”says Joan Weill, his wife of 54 years. “I know him. The company means so much to him. It was his baby.”
Yves here. The idea that he’d be welcomed back when the bank was in crisis strikes me as delusional, since the story gives no indication that he was still close to the movers and shakers at the bank (that sort of thing happens seldom, most often when board members are still in close contact with the old CEO) but again, there could be more to this that the NYT presents.
The story also gives his defense of his use of a Cit private plane to go on vacation in Mexico (he was permitted use as part of a deal to terminate a consulting contract). He was unhappy at being depicted as an out-of-touch banker…but this is a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars who IS an out of touch banker! Even though he was entitled to use the plane, this was a tone deaf move. And per our opening comment, Weill does not admit error:
Mr. Weill says that the model on which he built the company was not at fault, that it was the management that failed. For this, he accepts partial responsibility.
“One of the major mistakes that I made was my recommending Chuck Prince,” he says of his handpicked successor, who ran the company from 2003 to 2007. Mr. Weill blames Mr. Prince for letting Citi’s balance sheet balloon and taking on huge risks.
Yves here. Please, this is NOT taking responsibility. This is the BS that MBAs are taught to dole out. “Tell me your biggest fault.” Standard reply; “I am too competitive.” Even better: “I am too hard on myself.” Earth to base, or in this case, New York Times: Blaming Chuck Prince and claiming that it is “a major mistake” is NOT accepting responsibility, it is an acceptable way to assign blame. Back to the story:
In addition to initially supporting Mr. Prince as C.E.O. — even though Mr. Prince had never run a bank — Mr. Weill also pushed out Jamie Dimon, a well-regarded banker who now runs JPMorgan Chase. And Mr. Weill personally recruited Robert Rubin to Citi after Mr. Rubin stepped down as Treasury secretary. Mr. Rubin, who has since left Citi and declined to comment about his tenure there, has been criticized as failing to help rein in the bank’s excesses.
Mr. Weill says he has no regrets about hiring Mr. Rubin and wishes that things with Mr. Dimon had worked out differently.
The story ends on a mixed note:
Analysts say that managerial problems plagued the Citi empire and that its board, which might have imposed some order, became little more than a rubber stamp during the Weill era. “Sandy surrounded himself with yes men,” says Mr. Whalen. “He never wanted anyone second-guessing him.”
THESE days, Mr. Weill keeps busy with charities and his personal investments…
Such giving shows that Mr. Weill remains in far better shape than most other Citi investors. Although Forbes bounced him from its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans — the magazine once estimated his net worth at $1.5 billion — he still lives regally: a $42 million apartment in Manhattan; homes in Greenwich, Conn., and the Adirondacks; and a yacht.
Citi, meanwhile, has recently shown some signs of improvement….But for so many who depended on Citi, the bank has caused irreversible damage. It’s a reality that Mr. Weill says pains him.
“Look what it’s done,” he says. “It’s hurt the dreams of so many people.”
Notice the distancing: “it’s done…it’s hurt”. It must be nice never to have to say you were one of the perps.
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Robert Rubin was the smartest one in the group from a self-serving perspective. Notice he just keeps his damn mouth shut. I might be surprised to find out the facts, but it’s also worth noting I’ve never heard Rubin’s name mentioned among the CEO’s who had their personal net worth demolished by the crisis.
Being from Eastern Europe I really liked how the South African truth commissions worked. In Eastern Europe most apparatchiks (sans Ceausescu) got away or even thrived with their old connections after messing up the country. Now, South Africa is a very different case – and how would asking people to say they are sorry to be enriched bastards change the way the US works? I am afraid the only workable solution is jacking up the top tax brackets. As the financial industry has been shown to work around narrowly focused laws (see salarized stock under http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/12/30/how-feinberg-set-executive-pay/ ), these taxes have to be broad and unfortunately discourage people like Tiger Woods and Bill Gates from innovating further. (Wonder how Robert McNamara got motivated at Ford under the high taxes in the 50s.) The urgency of the crisis has evaporated. I can see how the current mess can continue for years and become the new norm. Nothing revolutionary can be expected of Obama. But maybe, just maybe, the public discourse will get to the point that somebody but the Federal Reserve will have to take care of this mess. But who knows? Argentina and Venezuela will happily welcome the US in the club of failed states.
Sandy’s touting himself for a job, sounds to me. And why not?: There’s going to be continued consolidation at the top of the mega-financials, and the US Guvmint’s footing allllllll the bills. Sandy’s saying, “I’ve got clean hands, and a good record; it’s the schlubs I left running the shop that pancaked. I’ll make you some money.”
Regarding higher top tax brackets, well yes, a fine idea; so’s belling the cat. Who’s going to do either? We had a soft coup in the Us fifteen months ago when the alpha financials took over the Federal government and annexed the tax receits from here to whenever to stabilize their wealth. Nothing has changed in that regard whatsoever in the time since. Government policy is drafted on Wall Street and there’s not the slightest indication that that will change in the next three years, and little beyond that. Not to sound pessimistic, but there’s no change on any horizon because too few want any change. Even the sight of themselves being robbed and jobbed can’t get the citizenry of the country off their sofas. The Weills and Rubins of the world have nothing to fear, not as along as an inept madmen trying to light his skivvies on fire gets more press than the theft of the country by a tiny group of failed oligarchs.
The business with the 92nd St. Y and Jack Grubman’s kids’ pre-school application tells a lot about Sandy Weill. He, of course, denies a quid pro quo with Grubman over Grubman’s rating of AT&T to influence Michael Armstrong to vote with Sandy Weill against John Reed. The whole sordid story also tells a lot about how crazy New York City is regarding getting your kids into the ‘right’ school. It’s nuts!
But this is still a case example of the dangers of the Times’ notion of “fairness”. “Fair” in American media means you tell both sides of the story. But what if some of the arguments made on one side are rubbish? Yes, both sides no doubt have a case to make, but don’t media outlets like the Times at least have a duty to make sure that the arguments presented are valid?
By now they do NOT believe this. On principle, where reporting on what any establishment figure has said, they believe they have no obligation to separate fact from fiction or solid arguments from obvious crap.
Several have explicitly said so, from the WaPo and elsewhere. While I don’t recall anyone from the NYT actually admitting (let alone proudly avowing, as the WaPo does) that, it’s clear from much of the “reportage” on business, on health “reform”, on the op-ed and elsewhere, that they practice it.
First object lesson:
“Sandy will forever be identified with Citigroup,” says Michael Armstrong, a Citi board member and a former chief of AT&T. “He put everything he had into its creation.”
Yves here. Lordie. Anyone with an operating brain cell will hopefully know to discount the praise of a former board member (translation: someone who got cash and perks directly from Sandy and is thus hardly objective). But Armstrong is a special case.
I still remember how, during the thick of the Rep campaign, the op-ed page saw fit to print a piece written by a Romney crony, his college roommate or something, whose entire “argument” boiled down to, “Mitt’s a friend of mine, and I’ve always known him to be a great guy, so therefore nothing bad anyone’s saying about him could be true, and he’d make a great president”.
Forgot to add this:
“Look what it’s done,” he says. “It’s hurt the dreams of so many people.”
Notice the distancing: “it’s done…it’s hurt”. It must be nice never to have to say you were one of the perps.
That’s what I call “criminalspeak”, because whenever I used to watch a documentary like “The Big House”, and they’d interview some lifer in for murder, he’d NEVER say something like “I shot and killed someone.”
Rather it would invariably run like this:
“There was this guy, and there was an argument, and there was a gun, and the gun went off, and the guy got shot, and the guy died..”
Always this passive voice, just expressing the point of view of a passive observer who got swept up in something beyond his control.
This, of course, is the official line of all these finance criminals, and every defender of wingnut welfare they have in the media and politics.
“Je Ne Regrette REIN”?
Great analysis, Yves, thanks. It’s incredibly important to look for these very subtle tendencies in the MSM, sadly specifically the N.Y. Times, to white-wash the main players in the big banks.
“conglomerateurs” ? New word Yves ?
very nice !!
I have viewed Citigroup as a mismanaged piece of junk since about 1982. Absent the Fed’s tilting the yield curve, it would have failed in about 1987. I see Walter Wriston as one of the most incompetant bankers in history.
Happy New Year YS!
i think a lot of people have failed to realize that Mr. Weill was shown the door when he so-called retired..Jack Grubman gave him up to Spitzer for a better deal, and Sandy was uncerimoniously told to take the next stage out of town or face the legal consequences..in revisionist history, he was an innovator who patched together the financial mess know as Citigroup and for many years the wheels stayed on the train..But alas, wall st. is a boom and bust world and the wheels finally came off..Rubin helped considerably with Glass-Steagall and also probably helped in giving Sandy safe passage out the door, but Rubin was an abysmal failure in the day to day stuff and was absent and mute when it came to plugging the holes..Jamie found success at JPM but he too was beaten up by the Russian meltdown in the mid nineties and his thirst for power..no one gets a good grade in this mess and now we have a stub of a company with many of its most talented people gone, and everyrone praying for a monumental rally back to the $5 price which is still 95% under its multi-yr high..”Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”
Thank you. And I’d love to know the name of Sandy’s public relations people –his name rarely if ever appears on the list of finance deregulation culprits.
First, I agree with your critique of the piece and the sickening non-objective, fawning, promotional aspects. If the reporter did not want to write some of those things and tried to add in some subtle subtext, then some editor or someone else surely wanted this piece done to pay off a chit.
I spent some time last night reviewing the latest dust-up over at the New York Times over some freelancers who took expenses and perks and did understand or adhere to contracts that forbid such things, even when not on a NYT assignment. http://twitter.com/Penenberg/statuses/7320255199
The holier than though, sanctimonious crap that I saw on Twitter about “fairness” and “objectivity” and never taking anything from anyone who may someday, in your wildest dreams, be a source reminded me of a bunch of church ladies. Those freelancers should have read and probably never signed those unconscionable contracts and NYT needs to get off its high horse and admit they are overly dependent on content they don’t want to pay the full load for. Something for nothing never is…
The idea that any of these major media staff reporters can be truly fair or objective as an organization, (I do not indict anyone as individuals since many hold on to their integrity until the last breath or layoff) is ludicrous. The Weill piece is PR puff on the latest financila crisis to add to Weill’s clipping folder before it’s too late and he can’t put his own two cents. That’s not only disingenuous but criminal. Who’s next week? Jack Welch blaming Immelt for GE’s recent fines for accounting manipulation? Oh wait, Harvard Business Review has set that one up for next month. http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/2010/01/the_decade_in_management_ideas.html
When some accuse me of bias in my writing about the Big 4 audit firms, I say, ” Damn right!” After twenty-five plus years in the business, I’m entitled (and you are too, Yves) to my opinion and my biases and you can take it or leave it.
Yeah, this morning I dashed off an e-mail to their stupid “public editor” who was blathering on about those nasty, unethical freelancers.
I really think a jackass like that doesn’t even understand that writing relentlessly favorable and ideologically slanted “reportage” about corporations and sectors upon whose advertising you rely is an infinitely greater conflict of interest than anything they’re beating up on the freelancers about.
The other day Yves linked to a piece about a study on how the nabobs demand that the little people live up to “morals” and “ethics” which they themselves never live up to and never intend to live up to.
Once again we’re seeing that, this time with the streetwalking corporatist “NYT”.
1. Sociopaths never have regrets.
2. Putting Walter Wriston on a pedestal is as absurd as worshipping Sandy Weil.
3. To actually write something like
“The bank had people who were on average considerable brighter and more energetic than the the commercial banking norm, and also pretty meritocratic by the standards of that era (if you were a minority, a foreign national, or female, Citi was a better career bet than most other places). It was reflexively innovative (not that that made an ounce of strategic sense, Citi would spend the time and money to innovate, and in particular, break new paths on the regulatory front, and the fast followers would get much of the advantage of Citi’s efforts at a fraction of the cost). Citi created the interest rate and FX swaps businesses….”
only proves you are still drinking the cool aid.
4. What financial services created over the past thirty years is simply an unmitigated disaster. There is nothing positive about any of it, and in a just world all the prime enablers would be stripped naked and imprisoned as guilty until proven innocent.
5. It is not a plus that the bank provided equal opportunity to amoral careerists of all races, genders, nationalities, even if this is true, which I doubt.
I’m not putting Wriston on a pedestal. But if you believe that the Citigroup that resulted was an accomplishment, the credit goes to Wriston for that vision, not Weil.
As for Citibank circa 1983, were you in the banking business back then? Citi’s staff was smarter than that of most banks (McKinsey had a very active banking practice even then). I said that Citi’s “strategy” of knee jerk innovation operated much more to the benefit of fast followers than Citi , and its frequent reorgs make reporting and accountability difficult. Those are indictments.
It seems you want a black or white treatment, when just about everything in life does not lend itself Manichean characterizations.
“Je ne regrette rien”
Non ! Rien de rien
Non ! Je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu’on m’a fait
Ni le mal tout ça m’est bien égal !
Non ! Rien de rien
Non ! Je ne regrette rien
C’est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé !
Avec mes souvenirs
J’ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
Je n’ai plus besoin d’eux !
Balayées les amours
Et tous leurs trémolos
Balayés pour toujours
Je repars à zéro
Non ! Rien de rien
Non ! Je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien, qu’on m’a fait
Ni le mal, tout ça m’est bien égal !
Non ! Rien de rien
Non ! Je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd’hui, ça commence avec toi !
Edith Piaf, as you know.
I couldn’t agree with you more…….. Exactly……… You read my mind
The wrong guy won. John Reed was head and shoulders over Weill. Weill is a kazar. He fixed his retirement package so he would not have to pay income taxes. Never a leader. No wonder he is lonely, he got what he worked for but no respect.
Yves, excellent article and a fine jumping off point for some email based commentary delivered to you from your citi insider buddies. Nail this clown to the wall with his own words and memo subjects in the 2000 to 2003 timeframe.
i jumped tru loops from lehamn to go to work for sandi at smith barney. when he + his colonels needed you they did anything for you. i went to f/x part of commodities division in 1996.when sandi took over salomon we were forgotten stepchieldren. at the city takeover we barley existed. Sandi s major problem was that he only cared about himself – always. the minute he did not need you- he forgot you. You can not run a business like that. Also as you so well talk about in the article- taking responsibility only for winners is not a great long term asset. I dare say as a soldier of Sandi – he was the worse Leader I experianced on the street . He deserves seating in jail – for the misery he brought on hundred of thousands of workers.
Sandy is a pig.
http://popup.lala.com/popup/576742291945882389
A minor point about an early paragraph:
“He had committed to doing it in two years, when the needed technology (voice over internet protocol) at that juncture had never been deployed outside a lab.”
AT&T’s plan wasn’t to use VOIP per se (which had been shown to work, and outside a lab at the time), but something else entirely. They created a FTTLA architecture (Fiber to the Last Active), and designed it to back haul the voice data from a customer’s home at high RF frequencies (900-1000 MHz).
I worked at a fiber/RF equipment manufacturer at the time, and will confirm what a mess their plan was, and the fact that it would never, in practicality, work. My company was among about half a dozen that expended resources and built small quantities of equipment to satisfy AT&T’s RFP. If memory serves, the “winner” (more properly known after the fact as loser) was Philips, based in upstate New York.
Long story short – AT&T ended up paying Philips some $ for product they never deployed. Philips was acquired, I think, by Antec from Georgia (might have been Scientific Atlanta, but I can’t recall for sure).
This is my long winded way of saying, had AT&T gone the VOIP route, using existing, off-the-shelf cable modems, perhaps adding the voice electronics into a cable modem package (the way all cable operators do voice today), they could have been marginally successful. Would it have justified the premium they payed to enter the industry in their acquisition of TCI? No. They paid twice per subscriber what anyone had to date, or since. At the time, I think it was something like $4500 / subscriber. Considering 20%+ of TCI’s subscriber base wasn’t even two-way capable (much of it older, “legacy” cable systems operating with around 300-450 MHz of bandwidth), the decision by Armstrong et al was that much worse.
The TCI acquisition, even at the time to those who worked in the industry, made even less sense than Time-Warner’s merger with AOL. It was obviously that bad.
Sandy Weill is at it again, feeling sorry for himself. This man has ruined the lives of countless employees and shareholders by focusing solely on the stock price. While he was doing this, key investments in technology were forgotten and key managerial decisions were botched. Shame on him for seeming like a hurt puppy. May America never see such third rate human beings ever be in positions of such power. The whole Worldcom/Grubman saga, including writing letters seeking admission for Grubman’s child, was emblematic of Sandy’s deal making prowess. Let it also be said that this man potentially ruined retirement benefits of employees by tinkering with assumptions that boosted earnings.
Well, to be fair, Sandy was at least not directly responsible for turning Citibank over to the man who presided over the most disastrous media merger, maybe ever. THAT still make me giggle every time I think about it. And then cry when I remember I still have student loans with them.