Pandit stays at Citi, at least for now

The job of running crisis-ridden Citigroup is still with India-born Vikram Pandit, who revived the American behemoth's years-old tag line -- Citi Never Sleeps -- but had to seek help worth billions of dollars from the US government to keep the bank afloat.

Over the past week, media was flooded with reports that Pandit was set to lose his job within a year of assuming the office, as he had lost the mandate for steering Citi out of its financial mess.

Till a few weeks ago, Citi was being considered among the last ones standing in the world's biggest economic crisis in the recent times and Pandit was even being commended for successfully turning around the bank.

But a sharp plunge in its share price over the past week to below four dollars, which wiped off more than half of the company's valuation, re-ignited the concerns about the bank's financial health and reports started surfacing that the board and investors wanted Pandit out of his corner room.

A number of media reports suggested that Pandit was looking at selling the entire bank, or dis-assemble it into pieces to be sold out separately, in his efforts to revive the once-most-valued financial institutions of the world.

However, the state-sponsored bailout of the battered Citigroup reached late last night has not only dispelled the doubts about the very existence of the financial services giant but also put to rest questions on the continuation of its India-born chief Vikram Pandit.