Citigroup's (C) Pandit Faces Tough Crowd in India

It was a tough crowd, but Vikram Pandit, chief executive of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), managed to win over the room full of finance majors gathered to meet him in town hall gathering in the first-floor ballroom of the Indian capital city's regal Imperial Hotel.

So Pandit, despite trying not to, was forced to be the professional banker that he is, and offer up statements similar to what he might exchange with his peers on Wall Street.

Since taking over as chief executive in December 2007, Pandit is on his first official visit to his country of birth. His first stop was in Mumbai, where Citigroup hosted a cocktail reception in the glittering ballroom of the Taj Mahal Palace so he could meet some of his largest revenue generators, the firm's clients. He has been in Delhi for two days attending the spring meeting of the International Institute of Finance.

Now that Citigroup is no longer on the verge of collapse, or owned by the U.S. government, or still running huge losses—last year it netted globally $10.6 billion on revenues of $86.6 billion—the man at the helm finally has time to breathe, and to check in on business in other parts of world to gauge the growth opportunities.

Citigroup was trading at $4.64, up $0.05, or 0.98 percent, as of 2:13 PM EST.




Full Story