Citigroup Hires Consumer Chief, Ousts Prime Brokerage Co-Heads

Citigroup Inc. hired Terri Dial from Lloyds TSB Group Plc to lead the bank's U.S. consumer unit and replaced the co-heads of prime brokerage, extending a management reshuffle following Vikram Pandit's appointment as chief executive officer.

Dial, 58, has overseen U.K. consumer banking for London- based Lloyds TSB, which announced her departure in a statement today. A person close to Citigroup confirmed that she is joining the New York-based company. Nick Roe, 42, who runs Citigroup's prime brokerage in Europe, will replace the departing co-heads of the business, Ali Hackett and Tom Tesauro, according to a memo from Steve Bowman, the bank's hedge fund services chief.

Pandit, who succeeded Charles O. ``Chuck'' Prince in December, has already promoted John Havens, 51, to oversee the bank's securities unit and named new heads of risk management and administration. Citigroup is reeling from $20 billion of writedowns that helped wipe out more than half of its market value in five months.

``For Pandit it's the case of a new broom sweeps clean,'' said Rupert Della-Porta, the chief operating officer at Atlantic Equities in London. ``You should expect a rotation of people.''

Citigroup fell 43 cents, or 2 percent, to $21.36 at 10:14 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares reached a 52-week high of $55.55 last May, and have fallen about 27 percent this year.

Dial, who joined Lloyds TSB in 2005, previously worked for almost 30 years at San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., where she oversaw the firm's banking business in California.

Increased Earnings

Lloyds TSB Chief Executive Officer Eric Daniels hired Dial to help lift revenue. The company's U.K. division increased pretax profit 20 percent in the second half of 2007 by restraining costs, increasing mortgage lending and attracting more deposits as the economy weakened.

``Dial has done a terrific job streamlining the business, focusing on new sales and keeping a lid on costs,'' said MF Global Securities Ltd. analyst Mamoun Tazi in London. Tazi has a ``buy'' rating on Lloyds TSB stock.

Revenue at the Citigroup U.S. consumer unit Dial that will lead rose 6 percent to $8.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared to a year earlier. Globally, the division's revenue climbed 21 percent to $15.5 billion.

Dial's appointment was reported earlier today by the Wall Street Journal. She's replacing Steven Freiberg, who will run Citigroup's global credit card business, the paper said. Citigroup spokesman Adrian Russell declined to comment.

Pandit's Plan

Roe, who will remain in London, joined Citigroup in 2005 from Deutsche Bank AG, where he ran global prime brokerage services. His appointment was reported late yesterday by the New York Times.

Pandit, 51, plans to tell shareholders in the next two months how he intends to rebuild Citigroup after the company lost about $150 billion of market capitalization since the start of 2007. The bank is cutting about 10 percent of the securities unit after the collapse of the subprime mortgage market triggered the biggest loss in its 196-year history.

Pandit, a former Morgan Stanley investment banker who joined Citigroup last July to oversee hedge funds and private equity, said in December that he's conducting a ``front-to- back'' review, scheduled to be completed in May. The review will help determine which assets should be sold.

More Losses

Citigroup posted a record loss in the fourth quarter of 2007 after rising defaults on home loans forced the company to write down $18 billion of subprime mortgage investments. The bank cut its dividend for the first time after reporting a loss of $9.83 billion, or $1.99 a share.

Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Meredith Whitney quadrupled her estimate of Citigroup's first-quarter loss this week to $1.15 a share on the expectation of additional writedowns. The bank is scheduled to report its quarterly results on April 18.

Citigroup lost the title of biggest bank by market value during the fourth quarter to Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina. New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. took the second spot in January.