Citi Unloading Robert Rubin and Salomon Smith Barney

We hope that Teflon Bob will not be finding a position with the Obama Administration. If he does they might have to drop the 'reform' label on that Administration. This is starting to look more like the shift change at the Rogues Gallery.

Citi is also said to be shopping (trying to unload) its Salomon Smith Barney brokerage division. They are said to be in talks with Morgan Stanley. Apparently MS is finding its current life as a bank holding company a bit timesome, coming in at 10 and out on the links by 3.

How fast time flies on the Street. It seems like only yesterday that little Philbro was in short pants, and then its first pair of white shoes. Then they grow up and rig the Treasury market and help set up the dotcom bubble, those little scamps.

Both Citi and JP Morgan continue to be plagued by rumours of large undisclosed losses and troubled positions.

Since Bob Rubin was on Sandy's and Vikram's A team, one has to wonder. As Pliny the Elder observed, "Ruinis inminentibus musculi praemigrant:" When collapse is imminent, the little rodents flee.

Wall Street Journal
Rubin to Leave Citigroup
By DAVID ENRICH

Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary who has been sharply criticized over his role in the financial turmoil at Citigroup Inc., is leaving the bank.

Mr. Rubin is senior counselor and a director at the New York company, which has suffered $20 billion in losses over the past year and got a government bailout of at least $45 billion. Citigroup's troubles cast an awkward spotlight on Mr. Rubin, who received $115 million in pay since 1999, excluding stock options.

Citi said in a statement that Mr. Rubin retired decided to retire as senior counselor effective Friday and decided not to stand for re-election as a director at the company's next annual meeting.

"Since joining Citi nearly 10 years ago, Bob has made invaluable contributions to the company," said Vikram Pandit, Chief Executive Officer of Citi.

While Mr. Rubin has defended his performance since joining Citigroup in 1999, insisting that the bank's problems were due to wider turmoil in the financial system, not failures by Citigroup, he is "tired of it," a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Rubin now wants to focus instead on his non-profit work and other outside interests.

The exit of Mr. Rubin likely will do little to ease the questions swirling around Citigroup, now just the fifth-largest U.S.-based bank as measured in stock-market value. Since late 2006, Citigroup's share price has plunged nearly 90%. On Friday, the stock was down more than 5% in recent New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Besides an initial $25 billion injection as part of a broad rescue of financial firms, the government agreed in November to put in $20 billion more and vowed to protect Citigroup against most losses on $306 billion of its assets.

The second infusion, which the government as the bank's largest shareholder, with a 7.8% stake, coincided with federal regulators putting Citigroup on a tighter regulatory leash, according to people familiar with the situation said.

Federal banking regulators have toughened their scrutiny of Citigroup, becoming involved in internal discussions about the company's strategic direction and discouraging executives from pursuing certain acquisitions.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in late November, Mr. Rubin said risk-management executives are responsible for navigating around problems like those now battering Citigroup. "The board can't run the risk book of a company," he said in the interview. "The board as a whole is not going to have a granular knowledge" of operations.

Still, Mr. Rubin was deeply involved in a decision in late 2004 and early 2005 to take on more risk to boost flagging profit growth, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Mr. Rubin also played a major role in getting Mr. Pandit appointed as Citigroup's chief executive in December 2007, following the resignation of Charles O. Prince.
In the Journal interview, Mr. Rubin said Mr. Pandit was doing a good job and would prosper in its current structure once the financial crisis eases.