Almost a year after calls for their removal, several Citigroup directors are stepping down — and former Mexican president and economist Ernesto Zedillo is stepping in.
Former AT&T Inc. CEO Michael Armstrong, Citi’s longest-serving director, and Xerox Chairman Anne Mulcahy won’t be running for re-election this year, Citigroup announced in a statement yesterday. Neither will Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor John Deutch, as announced in January.
The board has taken heat for allowing the bank to falter so badly that it took $45 billion of taxpayer aid in 2008.
All three directors won their bids for re-election to Citi’s board last year, but they were also all targets of relatively high shareholder “no” votes from displeased investors — a substantial 30 percent for Armstrong.
Armstrong and Deutch were also targets of claims that they had won their seats due to a controversial voting method that the SEC has since done away with.
The appointment of Zedillo, who served as Mexico’s president from 1994 to 2000, highlights the importance the bank is placing on its Mexican banking arm, Banamex. Officials have said Banamex plans to grab market share from competitors hurt by the region’s economic woes.
Yesterday’s news marks Citigroup’s third reshuffling under CEO Vikram Pandit in just over a year. In January 2009, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin stepped down amid questions about his role in Citigroup’s weakened financial state.
A few weeks later, former Time Warner chief Dick Parsons replaced Sir Win Bischoff as Citigroup’s chairman.
The New York bank accepted money from the government three times during the worst of the financial crisis, and is still partly owned by Uncle Sam. While it has repaid some $20 billion in bailout funds in December, the Treasury Department still owns 7.7 billion shares, or 27 percent, of Citi.