Citigroup may hike salaries by up to 50%
After all those losses and bailouts, rank-and-file employees of Citigroup are getting some good news: their salaries are going up. The troubled banking giant, which to many symbolises the troubles in the nation’s financial industry, intends to raise workers’ base salaries by as much as 50% this year to offset smaller annual bonuses, according to people with direct knowledge of the plan. The shift means that most Citigroup employees will make as much money as they did in 2008, although some might earn more and others less. The company also plans to award millions of new stock options to employees in an effort to retain workers and neutralise a precipitous drop in the value of their stock holdings. Like Citigroup—other financial companies—like Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, are raising employees’ base salaries to try to shift attention away from bonuses and curb excessive risk-taking. So are banks like UBS and other European competitors. Despite Washington’s new role at Citigroup, and public anger over big paydays on Wall Street, administration officials have little power to prevent the company and others in the industry from raising salaries for rank-andfile employees. Outsize pay on Wall Street is widely seen as having encouraged the risk-taking that led to the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression. NYT NEWS SERVICE * Citibank India net profit up 20% at Rs 2.1k cr on higher interest income *Mumbai: Financial services major Citibank, though struggling globally, has done well here with its Indian arm reporting a 20% rise in net profit at Rs 2,173 crore for year ended March 31, 2009. The bank, which has 40 branches at 28 locations in India, said on Wednesday that its total revenue was up 24% at Rs 10,423 crore amid inflows by way of higher interest income, trading income and fees. The balance sheet of the bank grew by 26% to Rs 1,05,264 crore in FY09 from Rs 83,851 crore in the previous fiscal. Citibank’s parent organisation Citigroup, which was on brink of collapse till recently, too has made a dramatic turnaround by recording a profit of $1.6 billion for the first three months of this year. Citigroup, after posting a string of losses for the previous five consecutive quarters, follows conglomerates Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan in surprising the Wall Street with better earnings than estimated in the first quarter of this year. AGENCIES --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""GLOBAL SPECULATORS"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalspeculators?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
