Meet Citigroup’s new puppet master.
In the wake of Vikram Pandit’s sudden resignation as CEO of Citigroup, all eyes turned to Citigroup’s new chairman, Michael O’Neill, who has been burnishing his reputation as a hands-on chairman.
Everyone from analysts to insiders pointed to the 65-year-old banking veteran as the man behind the move that rattled Wall Street yesterday.
“Recall, in April Michael O’Neill replaced Richard Parsons as chairman of the board. This could have facilitated this move,” Barclays analyst Jason Goldberg said in a research report.
O’Neill’s ties to Citi’s new CEO, Michael Corbat, go back to Corbat’s days as head of Citi Holdings, the “bad bank” division that held the bank’s toxic assets in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
O’Neill had been chair of the Citi Holdings Oversight Committee since joining Citi’s board in 2009.
“They work well together,” sources say about the relationship between Corbat and O’Neill.
The Citi chairman has also made no secret about his desire to get his hands dirty in his new gig — a far different approach from his predecessor Parsons.
O’Neill told colleagues that his goal was to understand the company well enough “so that when Vikram tells him what he wants to do, he can push back,” according to a Wall Street Journal profile of O’Neill earlier this year.