CEO-designate Vikram Pandit vows ‘powerful & modern Citi’

The world’s largest bank Citigroup’s newly appointed CEO Vikram Pandit on Wednesday said it was going to be a “powerful and modern Citi” under his leadership. India-born Pandit was named chief executive officer(CEO) of Citigroup late on Tuesday night, after his predecessor Charles Prince resigned following a $11 billion writedown disclosed by the bank due to the subprime crisis.

“I do not want to dream, but I was looking forward,” Pandit said in an interview from New York with a private TV news channel, referring to his anointment to the top of Citigroup. Pandit was heading the Investment Banking division of the bank for the past seven months and has previously headed the Institutional Securities business at Morgan Stanley.

Asked about the path he would take at Citigroup, which has been under pressure during the recent subprime crisis, Pandit said he did not want to speculate anything and would go through all the businesses one by one. In the next six months, he would focus on people to get them to concentrate on future prospects. Pandit denied the speculations the bank would discontinue its dividend payouts. “The dividend will stay and this is the board’s decision,” he said.