Comments on: Pandit in the Citi

By: Nari

Nari — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:40:56 +0000

As far as I banking is concerned I had met one of the earliest Ajit Hutheesingh, Nehru’s brother in law who was the Chairman of Schroeders and head of I banking. They probably considered a Maharajah a WASP

By: Simran

Simran — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:12:38 +0000

Hi Hari, great name by the way straight from the Gita, have you come across many Indian investment bankers, and how difficult is it for Indians to move up in this world? I’ve heard that it’s 95% white guys.

By: brown

brown — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:06:48 +0000

Dizzy,

This is great news, I really like Pandit and has been following his career since his days at Morgan.

By: DizzyDesi

DizzyDesi — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:55:49 +0000

It’s official: Pandit is the Citi CEO

http://www.citigroup.net/citigrouptoday/announcement/ann071212a.shtml

By: Quant-Trotsky

Quant-Trotsky — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:58:01 +0000

â€¦When Vikram Pandit resigned as head of institutional securities at Morgan Stanley in March 2005 at the height of the coup to remove then chief executive Philip Purcell, his colleagues gave him a standing ovation as he left the trading floor for the last time.

I work on the trading floor in a Wall Street firm. Standing ovations are common enough ( mostly in January after bonus day ). Desi pride aside, I don't think Pandit has the depth of background to get Citi out of it's troubles. I don't believe he has any knowledge about Consumer banking and managing an international financial conglomerate like Citi is probably not the smartest thing for him to do now. In short, on Wall Street, he is not considered a serious contender for the top job. Also, Manju's points 29-32 -- good.

By: Manju

Manju — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:54:08 +0000

Lehman apparently has desis in many high positions. It was the first company that really saw the benefits of hiring straight from IIMs. The school with the most alumni in some of these firms is IIT (although it takes the numbers from all IIT campuses together to beat the numbers of Wharton or, Harvard etc).

for those interested in race and class on wall st, this development goes back to the old salomon bros, a firm only known for bond trading, devoid of some traditional wall st divisons like m&a or private client. up until the late 80's there was a certain subculture of traders on wall st, almost exclusively white ethnics (irish, italian, and jews), male, and often w/o a college education (never mind an mba). many of the top traders and subsequent ceos or chairmens work working class guys with no formal ed, lewis ranieri ant sollie, or ace greenberg at bear sterns.

they found their place in the rough and tumble world of trading (as opposed to corp finance). most of the guys who work on the floor of the nyse fit this bill, though its now a dying profession. trading back in the day was an instinctual profession, legend has it that ace greenburg hired bears now ceo james cayne after observing him play bridge. wannabe goldman traders would play a hand of poker in the interviews (according to the book "goldman sachs, the culture of success" by lisa someone).

no firm epitomized this subculure more than sollie, though it would be the firm to end it as well. one man, john merriweather, was responsible. under meriiweathers prop trading group, trading became more complex, more mathematical. he was the first, i believe, to really use computer modeling which allowed his group to create and trade more derivatives, including the very mortgage backed securites that have come back to haunt wall street (yeah wall st trader went mano-a-mano with poor immigrants lying about their credit and lost. heh.)

anyway, merriweather was among the first to realize the mba was worthless and hired kids with engineering and mathematics degrees, leading to a bizarre culture class of chinese nerds vs. irish high-school football playes on the trading floor. eventually bond trading got beyond men like lewis ranieri and the trading floor started to resemble an mit campus. other firms began to follow suit, and the best trader left to start hedge funds, but wall st was transformed...doors opened up for brown engineer types and closed for the working class whites.

there were other developments of course. michael milkins junk bonds changed ibanking forever, opening up finance to those who were left out. gates' mircrosoft surpassing ibm as THE tech company was a warning sign that a new type of capitalist was on the horizon, one that liked to take on monopolies and creatively destroy. no longer did it matter that you went to boarding school with the son of the ford chairman in a world where companies will go from 0 to a billion in 16 months, like youtube.

but it all began with john meriiweather and his merry band of bond traders at salomon brothers.

By: Paranoid Android

Paranoid Android — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:36:37 +0000

Guess people will take up in some time and read this: http://www.dawn.com/2007/11/03/welcome.htm. What are the implications of the “second coup” as Dawn gently puts, for South Asia as a whole?

By: brown

brown — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 17:29:26 +0000

Manju,

I agree with you about Citi's balance sheet, the assets have grown way faster than income that is why the ratios have taken substantial hit. BTW Prince is resigning tomorrow and Pandit is in the running according to NY times.
Nirav, in America for sure Indians are more than their relative percentage in banking.

By: Candadai Tirumalai

Candadai Tirumalai — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:46:33 +0000

I agree with Vinod that an individual performing well at the highest level can and does make a difference to those who come after him. Here are a few thoughts about S. Chandrasekhar (1910-95), the distinguished astro-physicist, who after some years at Cambridge University, came to the University of Chicago in 1937, an association which lasted nearly 60 years. He lived an austere, totally dedicated life, working 10-plus-hour days seven days a week, and contributing definitively to six or seven areas of astro-physics. “Chandra” is of course named for him. His wife has established research fellowships in his memory at the University of Chicago. Chandrasekhar’s intellectual predecessor was Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), who, with the far-sighted encouragement of Professor G.H. Hardy of Cambridge, did brilliantly original work in Mathematics. C.P. Snow said that when in Ramanujan’s company Hardy never forgot that he was in the presence of genius. Nehru, who was two years younger than Ramanujan but had preceded him at Cambridge, paid tribute to his example in “The Discovery of India.”

By: Nirav

Nirav — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:37:28 +0000

I am a desi at a bulge bracket investment bank. And Desis are not over represented at all. Compared to the percentage who are in the educated bracket (in London and in New York) Typically on a trading floor 2-5% of faces might be brown, most of them would be amongst the junior levels. at the Senior level you do have people, but the deluge is just starting. And dont forget Anshu Jain the head of Global Markets in Deustche bank (though head quartered in London, I figure not many SM'ers are in London) who is paid more than the CEO.

though you may see Brown faces now, no where it is close to the 16% of the world that we are, and not to mention the number of desis with colleg degrees in any of these financial centers