花旗新掌门任重而道远

    花旗集团（Citigroup）新任CEO迈克尔•考伯特曾是常青藤盟校的橄榄球明星，在哈佛大学（Harvard）自助餐厅中的回头率颇高。

    哈佛校友安德鲁•道克托罗夫1982年时曾在校报The Harvard Crimson上为这位当时的常青藤联盟进攻锋线队员撰文，如今回忆起来仍称赞道“他是一个发展极其全面的人。他很好地保留了自己杰出的运动天赋。”

    即使是在那个时候，身高6.3英尺(约1.92米)、体重230磅(约104公斤)的考伯特就已将目光投向了投资银行业。时至今日，他已经获得华尔街最顶级、但可能也最具挑战的职位之一。

    花旗集团周二宣布，现年52岁的考伯特将接替潘伟迪担任集团新一任CEO。潘伟迪曾将花旗从破产的边缘拉了回来。最困难的时后，花旗曾经不得不两次接受美国政府的救助。此后，花旗已经向美国政府偿还了这些救助资金，但在实现增长方面仍困难重重。近来，花旗错过了抵押贷款市场的一波繁荣。而且，花旗手头还有几十亿美元的不良资产希望出手，但似乎还没有想清如何剥离。这些不良资产还在继续拖累花旗的业绩。

    考伯特在周二下午召开的分析师电话会议上表示：“我们拥有适当的业务覆盖和资源，我们要确保恰当利用这些资源。”

    不同于潘伟迪，考伯特在花旗已经干了大半辈子，而潘伟迪是通过一项有争议的并购交易进入花旗，随后不久被选为CEO。一名曾与考伯特共事的前花旗高管说：“与潘伟迪相比，考伯特在担任CEO前涉及的职责更为广泛。他很有能力，是名出色的销售。”

    考伯特的第一份工作是在亚特兰大的所罗门兄弟公司(Salomon Brothers)。1987年，他被调到所罗门兄弟具有传奇色彩的纽约办公室，迈克尔•刘易斯著名的华尔街小说《说谎者的扑克牌》(Liar's Poker)就是以所罗门兄弟纽约办公室为背景。在所罗门兄弟，考伯特从债券交易员做到了高收益债券和新兴市场主管。后来，所罗门兄弟通过一系列并购交易，与花旗银行(Citibank)合并，组建了花旗集团。

    前花旗集团CEO桑迪•威尔表示，他十分了解考伯特，花旗集团董事会做出了很好的选择。“他在花旗担任过很多重要职务，一直都是一名优秀的管理者，”威尔说。“他在公司内部备受尊敬，未来将成为花旗团队一名出色的领导者。”

    所罗门兄弟与花旗银行合并以来，考伯特在花旗集团担任过很多业务部门的主管，包括企业银行和财富管理部门等，也曾派驻伦敦和香港。本轮金融危机后不久，潘伟迪就任命考伯特主管Citi Holdings，即包括次贷和所罗门美邦（Salomon Smith Barney）经纪业务等在内的大量花旗希望剥离的业务组合。考伯特在担任该项职务期间仅用了3年多一点的时间就帮助花旗剥离了5,000亿美元不想再持有的资产。今年年初，他接管了花旗集团的欧洲、中东和非洲业务。

    与花旗集团合作过的一位猎头说：“潘伟迪让考伯特负责状况欠佳的银行业务，感觉他干得不错。“

    Citigroup's new CEO Michael Corbat was an ivy league football star, who turned heads in the Harvard cafeteria.

    "He was extremely well rounded," says Andrew Doctoroff, a fellow Harvard student, who wrote about the then All-Ivy offensive lineman in The Harvard Crimson in 1982. "He kept his athletic prowess in perspective."

    Even back then, the 6'3'', 230-pound Corbat had his sights on tackling investment banking. He's now landed in one of the biggest jobs on Wall Street, and perhaps the toughest.

    On Tuesday, Citigroup (C) said Corbat, 52, would take over from Vikram Pandit as the firm's new CEO. Pandit brought Citi back from its near death experience, when it had to be bailed out twice by the government. It has since paid Uncle Sam back. But the bank has struggled to grow. Recently, Citi missed out on a boom in the mortgage market. What's more, Citi is still stuck with billions of dollars of assets that the bank says it no longer wants to own, but can't seem to figure out how to get rid off. The troubled assets have continued to drag down Citi's earnings.

    "We have the right footprint and the right resources," Corbat told analysts on conference call on Tuesday afternoon. "It's up to us to make sure we use these properly."

    Unlike Pandit, who was brought into the bank in a controversial acquisition shortly before being picked as CEO, Corbat is a lifer of the Citi organization. "He's had a broader range of roles leading up to the job than Pandit," says a former Citi executive who worked with Corbat. "He's a capable guy and a good salesman."

    Corbat's first job was working for Salomon Brothers in Atlanta. But by 1987, he had been transferred to Solly's legendary New York office, which later became the subject of Michael Lewis' famous Wall Street book Liar's Poker. A debt specialist, Corbat rose to be the head of high-yield bonds and emerging markets at Solly, before the firm was merged in a series of acquisitions with Citibank to form Citigroup.

    Sandy Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup, said that he knows Corbat well and thought Citi's board had made a good choice. "He has been a great manager for Citi in all of the important positions he has held," said Weill. "He is respected by the people within the company and he will be a good leader for the team in the future."

    Since the Citigroup merger, Corbat has headed up a number of businesses at the firm, including corporate bank and its wealth management division, and has spent time in London and Hong Kong. Shortly after the financial crisis, Pandit named Corbat the head of Citi Holdings, the group of businesses, including subprime lending and the Salomon Smith Barney brokerage division, that bank was looking to get rid of. As head of that division, Corbat helped the firm dispose of $500 billion of unwanted assets in a little over three years. At the beginning of this year, he took over the firm's Europe, Middle East and Africa operations.

    "Pandit put Corbat in charge of the bad bank and the sense is that he did a good job with it," says an executive recruiter who has worked with Citi.