Citi Pandits salary now $1.75 mn from $1

Citigroup Incs chief executive Vikram Pandit got a $1,749,999 raise.

Citigroup Incs chief executive Vikram Pandit got a $1,749,999 raise on Friday.

Pandit had pledged in 2009 to receive an annual salary of $1 until the struggling Citigroup returned to sustained profitability.

On Friday afternoon,three days after the bank reported its first full year-profit since 2007,the board raised his salary to an annual base of $1.75 million.

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That amount pales in comparison to some of the compensation awarded to other high-profile Wall Street executives James Gorman and John Thain on Friday. Gorman,CEO of Morgan Stanley,and Thain,CEO of CIT Group Inc were awarded incentive compensation on Friday,while Citigroup did not say what additional bonuses and incentives Pandit would be eligible for.

His pay raise will be effective immediately,Citigroups board said in a regulatory filing. It said in September that it intended to raise his pay in 2011,without disclosing the amount.

Massive losses during the financial crisis forced Citigroup to take $45 billion in US government bailout funds. Pandit,who was named CEO in late 2007,presided over two full years of losses before the bank reported its fourth consecutive quarterly profit on Tuesday.

The US government also sold the last of its Citigroup stock in December,helping the bank shed its status as a government ward.

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The worst is over for Citigroup certainly there was a point in which people thought it would have to be broken up, said Richard Lipstein,a managing director at Boyden Global Executive Search,which consults for financial companies.

The days of the $1-a-year Wall Street CEO are over, he said. Pandits new base salary is about 35 times the US median household income,which was about $50,000 in 2009.