Vikram Pandit | |
|---|---|
 Vikram Pandit at theWorld Economic Forum in 2011. | |
| Born | (1957-01-14)14 January 1957 (age 68)[1] |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Education | Columbia University (BS, MS, MBA, PhD) |
| Occupation | |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Board member of | |
| Spouse | Swati[4] |
| Children | 2[4] |
| Awards | Padma Bhushan (2008) |
Vikram Shankar Pandit (born 14 January 1957) is anIndian American banker[5][6] and investor who was thechief executive officer ofCitigroup from December 2007[7] to 16 October 2012[8][9] and is the currentchairman andchief executive officer of The Orogen Group.[10]
Pandit has been honoured with thePadma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, for his contributions to the trade and industry in 2008 by theGovernment of India.[11]
Vikram Pandit was born inDhantoli locality ofNagpur,Maharashtra, India, to an affluentMarathi family.[12][13] His father, Shankar B. Pandit, was an executive director at Sarabhai Chemicals inBaroda.[14][15][16]
Pandit studied at Bishop Cotton School in Nagpur,[17] and then completed his schooling at theDadar Parsee Youths Assembly High School inDadar,Mumbai. The family also briefly moved toMombasa, Kenya, in 1969.[6] When Pandit was 16 years old, he moved to the United States[14] to attendColumbia University[18] for his undergraduate program and, in 1976, earned his B.S. degree inelectrical engineering in only three years. He then completed his M.S. in electrical engineering in 1977. Pandit subsequently turned to economics and finance and earned an MBA and PhD in finance fromColumbia Business School in 1986, after publishing athesis involving a complex financial puzzle, titled "Asset prices in a heterogeneous consumer economy."[14][19][20][21] He taught economics at Columbia as a doctoral student and from 1986 to 1990 was anAssistant Professor atIndiana University in Bloomington.[6]
He joinedMorgan Stanley as an associate in 1983, one of the first Indians to join the company.[14]
He was instrumental in building Morgan Stanley'selectronic trading platform andprime brokerage division and in 2000, ultimately rose to the post of president andchief operating officer of its worldwide operations of theInstitutional securities andInvestment banking businesses.[4]
In 2005, after more than two decades with Morgan Stanley, Vikram Pandit decided to leave the firm along withJohn Havens after being passed over byPhilip J. Purcell.[22][23]
In March 2006, Pandit andJohn Havens, along with Guru Ramakrishnan (former global head of trading, technology and new products in the equities group at Morgan Stanley), started thehedge fund Old Lane LLC.[24] Citi bought the company in 2007 for $800 million, bringing both Pandit and Havens into Citi leadership.[25] Citi named Pandit chairman and CEO ofCiti Alternative Investments (CAI) unit and he later led Citi'sInstitutional Clients Group.
On 11 December 2007, Pandit was named the new CEO ofCitigroup, replacing interim-CEOSir Winfried Bischoff. Pandit was strongly supported by then interim chairman of CitigroupRobert Rubin,[26] the effective successor toChuck Prince.
On 11 February 2009, Pandit testified to Congress that he had declared to his board of directors, "My salary should be$1 per year with no bonus until we return to profitability."[27][28] He also struck an apologetic tone for letting the bank consider completing the purchase of a private jet plane after receiving some $45 billion inTroubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.[29] His total 2009 compensation was $128,751, with a base salary of $125,001 and other compensation of $3,750.[30]
In January 2011, after working for two years for a salary of $1 a year, his annual base was raised to $1.75 million for the progress Citi made under Vikram's leadership.[30][31][32] After posting five consecutive quarterly profits, Citigroup in May 2011, announced $23.2m retention award to Pandit making him one of the highest paid CEOs.[33][34] In April 2012, shareholders voted against increasing his pay to $15 million. About 55% of the votes cast were against the compensation package.[35]
His co-chairing of Davos 2012 was criticized,[36] with Mike Mayo, an analyst withCrédit Agricole in New York remarking: "What kind of signal does that send, that the bank that was the worst-performing in our country over the last decade and whose stock price is still down significantly since he took over, is the ambassador for our financial industry?"[37] At Davos 2012, Pandit said that Citigroup was going "back to the basics of banking" in response to public anger about the2008 financial crisis, and argued that, "The single biggest issue facing us is the question of jobs," giving an estimate of 400 million jobs in the next 10 years.[38]
On 16 October 2012, Pandit unexpectedly resigned as Citigroup CEO.[9]Michael Corbat, previously Citigroup's CEO of Europe, Middle East, and Africa, was named as his replacement.[39] While Pandit and the company maintain that he resigned,Bloomberg News cited anonymous board sources indicating that Pandit was forced out by the board after eroding investor confidence and damaging company relations with regulators over an extended period.[40] TheNew York Times later identified ChairmanMichael E. O'Neill as the driving force behind a months-long secret effort to oust Pandit, which culminated in a surprise ultimatum to Pandit stating that he must resign immediately, resign at the end of the year, or be fired.[41] His resignation followed multiple payouts to investors during ongoing fraud allegations.[42][43][44]
While CEO of Citigroup in 2007, Pandit earned an annualized compensation of $3,164,320, which included a base salary of $250,000, stocks granted of $2,914,320, and options granted of $0.[30] In 2008, he earned a total compensation of $38,237,437, which included a base salary of $958,333, stocks granted of $28,830,000, andoptions granted of $8,432,911. However, after adjusting for Citigroup's sunken share price, the package was worth just a few million dollars.[32] Pandit received $165 million for his hedge fund which was purchased by Citi in 2007.[45] The fund has since been closed. In 2012, Citigroup shareholders voted in favor of a non-binding resolution to reject a $15 million pay package for Pandit. In November 2012, Pandit was paid about $6.7 million.[46]
It was reported in May 2013 that Pandit and Hari Aiyar, another Indian executive, were acquiring a 3 percent equity stake inJM Financial and launching a $100 million fund to invest in distressed assets.[47] It was reported in May 2016 that Pandit and Atairos Group created a new operating company, The Orogen Group, to invest in financial services companies with backing fromComcast Corporation.[48]
Pandit is a member of the boards ofColumbia University,Columbia Business School, theIndian School of Business,American India Foundation andTrinity School. He is also a member ofKappa Beta Phi.[49] He received the 2008Great Immigrants Award from theCarnegie Corporation of New York.[50]
Pandit, anaturalized citizen of the United States, lives in an apartment on theUpper West Side ofManhattan. He and his wife, Swati, have two children.[51]
Ajay Mehta portrayed Pandit in the 2011television film,Too Big to Fail.[52]
It's stunning when you think about it: How does Pandit, who owes much of his fortune to the American public's largess, wind up being showcased as a paragon of leadership and free enterprise, little more than a year after the U.S. Treasury finally sold the last of its Citigroup common stock?
Some of Pandit's critics at home question whether he should take a bigger role at Davos given his bank's underperformance. Shares in the lender, which received a $45 billion government bailout during the financial crisis, have plunged 94 percent in the past decade, the most of the 24 companies in the KBW Bank Index, and 91 percent since Pandit became CEO in 2007.
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