Pandit Told Congress Compensation Was $1 Million, But Bank Filing Shows $10.8 Million (WATCH)

Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit received nearly $11 million of compensation in 2008.

A month earlier, he testified to Congress that his compensation for 2008 was just $1 million.

"My compensation for the year 2008 was my salary, which was $1 million," he told the House Committee on Financial Services on February 11, failing to mention his sign-on and retention awards, as well as stock and option awards.

At the same hearing, Pandit pledged to accept a salary of just $1 a year and no bonus until Citibank once again posted a profit.

The $10.82 million in total compensation for 2008 consisted of $7.73 million in sign-on and retention awards, a $958,333 salary, $9.84 million of stock and option awards and $16,193 of other compensation.

According to Crain's New York Business, Pandit originally was paid $40 million, not $11 million, but lost a significant bulk of the money when the stock tumbled, recently dipping to below $1 a share.

The vast majority of Mr. Pandit's compensation last year came in the form of stock granted in January 2008 as a "sign-on award" a month after he became CEO. The value of the shares at the grant date was $37 million, reflecting Citi's stock price at the time, $24.40 a share. Since then, Citi's share price has collapsed into penny-stock territory, and the shares given Mr. Pandit were worth only $1.8 million as of last Friday.

Mr. Pandit joined Citi after it acquired his hedge fund, Old Lane Partners, for $800 million in 2007. Mr. Pandit is said to have personally reaped $165 million from that sale.

WATCH:

Comments

[PhilipTaylor]

12:01 AM on 03/21/2009

What is it Pandit?

( ) $1
( ) $1 Million
( ) $10.8 Million
(X) $38.5 Million

[LongTom]

02:46 PM on 03/18/2009

ALL BUSINESS EXECUTIVES ARE JUST NATURAL BORN SUCKING LIARS. After all, lying, stealing, and cheating are the best ways to the top in the business world. They just stick with what they know.

[Phil Waste]

10:51 PM on 03/17/2009

Not one banker, not one investor, not one speculator, not one person who has brought us so much misery and cost so many people their lively hoods , their homes, their jobs, and in some cases their lives, has gone to jail.

Here is the perfect opportunity to put one of these criminals in jail.

Pandit lied to Congress under oath and there is a record.

Arrest him now!

Let him be the first of a long line of prisoneers.

People wake up and start demanding and demanding until something is done and if they don't act, well...............

[JDOK]

10:10 PM on 03/17/2009

Will somebody please arrest all these guys...........

[Davwbaird]

09:45 PM on 03/17/2009

We are in this mess due to the greed of all these monster Banks which are still lobbying congress. Let your senators and representative that you are watching them and will not tolerate this evil damaging to life as we know it situation. I have done so.

Now all those who tout unfettered capitalism, go away on an island somewhere and practice what you advocate among yourselves. We know that within two weeks you will have done yourselves in, because that is the kind of social paths your are.

[markinaz]

08:17 PM on 03/17/2009

Congress to Pandit; when your lips move, we know you're lying.

[Appleton]

06:08 PM on 03/17/2009

I guess this gentleman can now be known as "Pandit the "Bandit." As a sophisticated investor, experienced executive and speaker of the English language, Mr. Pandit certainly understood that the inquiry by the House Committee on Financial Services was intended to ascertain the consideration received by him, in whatever form it might take, for the services he had agreed to render to Citigroup. He also understood that base salary typically represents only a small portion of total compensation. Therefore, his response was more than intentionally misleading. It was a lie told for the purpose of deflecting attention from the issue of executive compensation being paid by failing institutions. Mr. Pandit simply wished to avoid having to do the impossible-justify a system which rewards incompetence and success in equal measure. He chose cowardice over candor and will undoubtedly respond with feigned outrage over any suggestion that his disingenuous testimony was anything more than a simple oversight.

[PhilipTaylor]

04:58 PM on 03/17/2009

WAKE UP! Middle Class Democrats are Mad as HECK!

No Direct Line of CREDIT from Government (LIKE that to WALL STREET) is available to MAIN STREET business and consumers! NO FLOW that goes around this corrupt BANKSTER System.

We all KNOW Shelby is a Foreign Car Republican and part of the PARTY of "NO", but the steps shown by Geithner and Bernanke call into question their Loyalty to Middle Class AMERICANS!

If Geithner and Bernake were not so SUPPORTIVE of HELPING the Corrupt Banksters on Wall Street and were INSTEAD HELPING & PROTECTING MAIN STREET & the Taxpayer, Democrats would be much more supportive.

So Far Banksters' WELFARE and preserving the FED is Geithner/Bernanke's Primary GOAL!

It appears to us "OUTSIDERS" that the "INSIDERS" are still running the Economy for Themselves doing their periodic long term and short term "Harvests of the Middle Class."

NO CREDIT is FLOWING to MAIN STREET except the "TRICKLE DOWN" that flows through the untrustworthy Big WS Banking System that we KNOW is run by the "FLUNKY FED" OWNED and OPERATED for the Benefit of the Elite Banks.

No Direct Line of CREDIT from Government (LIKE WALL STREET HAS) is available to Main Street business and consumers that goes around this corrupt BANKSTER system.

No effort to create that HONEST alternative has been put forward!

So Main Street "WILTS" while SanSilly RANTS and WALL STREET Elites get their $10.8 Million BONUSES and Goldman "Double-DIPS" through AIG!

[MoeB]

03:01 PM on 03/17/2009

Ok. It's time to stop the games and playing nice...it's time to launch criminal investigations and start sending these people (and I use the term loosely) to jail.

[edwcorey]

02:10 PM on 03/17/2009

Here's a stimulus: $10 billion to hire forensic accountants to investigate all bailout companies. The he!! with looking forward. Go and get that money back and put the miscreants in prison. As one article said, spin off the bad departments and let them declare bankruptcy. This stimulus is looking as corrupt as Paulson.

[buggedabouttheus]

02:48 PM on 03/17/2009

Yes.

[Matrixunloaded]

01:55 PM on 03/17/2009

$10M? He made $90M in 2008!

This is only half the story. Pandit was also distributed close to $80M in June 2008 as a distribution from Citigroup buying his hedge fund for over $200M. It's all in the Proxy statement on file at the SEC's EDGAR.

Pandit should change his name to "Bandit" and "Perjurer"

[blood1]

01:48 PM on 03/17/2009

OH MY! I am shocked to hear that the CEO of one of the failed Investment Banks lied - absolutely F-ng shocked! Almost as shocked to hear that the money given to AIG went to bail out these same Investment Banks!

Time for the depression! Why wait?

[pros54]

01:37 PM on 03/17/2009

Let the looting continue.

[terkid]

01:35 PM on 03/17/2009

It's this kind of accounting acumen that, I imagine, got shitibank
into it's fine mess. Love it... ooops, yes I made a $9 million mistake
in my compensation figure.

Will somebody just extinguish these a$$holes!

[jazabelz]

11:57 AM on 03/17/2009

Doesn't this amount to perjury? We go after sports figures because they lie about growth hormones; we go after Clinton because he lied about sex, but we don't go after these executives and boards of directors when they lie to Congress? Something's wrong with this picture and they all need to be indicted and prosecuted to the full measure of the law. As far as I'm concerned, they all belong in prison and not the federal country club type! They also need to surrender all their assets (even if they are in their wive's or children's names) -- they were gotten by illegal means.