July 3, 2012 7:51 pm

Citi shifts investor relations chief

By Tom Braithwaite in New York

Citigroup has moved its head of investor relations less than three months after the bank’s embarrassing defeat on an executive “say on pay” vote.

John Andrews will shift to a new role working on “institutional client content development and marketing”, Citi said in an internal memo.

The move had nothing to do with the defeat at the annual meeting in April, according to people at the bank, who said Mr Andrews was not being held responsible for the fractious relationship between the company and some leading shareholders.

But senior Citi executives have been frustrated that some bankers charged with investor relations did not manage to prevent the rebellion at the meeting in Dallas where 55 per cent of shareholders either went against the pay plan or abstained.

The California Public Employee’s Retirement System voted against the plan and said Citi had failed to “demonstrate that rewards are being earned for performance”.

Citi has not announced any changes to the pay plan, which has been criticised for setting modest profit targets for executives to reap millions of dollars of bonuses. Last year Vikram Pandit, chief executive, was paid $15m in salary, bonus and deferred stock.

“Here we are a few months after the negative say-on-pay vote and Citigroup’s done nothing,” said one analyst.

Michael O’Neill, who replaced Dick Parsons as chairman after the meeting, is speaking to leading shareholders to explore how Citi might reform the way it deals with investors, according to people familiar with those moves.

Mr Andrews, an alumnus of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citadel, did not immediately return a call. Citi declined to comment.

In the internal memo, John Gerspach, chief financial officer, and Jim O’Donnell, head of investor sales, told staff that Mr Andrew would be leading a team that delivers markets analysis to institutional clients.

“He will create a formal structure to harness Citi’s corporate-wide internal experts and deliver rapid insight around market-moving events,” they said.

Susan Kendall, deputy head of investor relations, was named interim head of the department.

Mr Andrews has supporters within the bank and some believe it was others tasked with relations with shareholders who fell short.

“As John is thoroughly knowledgeable about Citi’s global businesses and where we have unique content, we believe he will be a great asset in leveraging this content for our institutional investor client base,” the memo said.