NYC Apartment Listed For $88M

Former Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill has listed his Central Park-adjacent apartment for $88M, a price which, if met, would far eclipse the above records.

If the sale of the penthouse closes for anything near that price, it would set a record for the sale of a Manhattan apartment. The limestone building, which was designed by Robert A.M. Stern and developed by Arthur and William Lie Zeckendorf, was designed to echo the spacious apartment layout and traditional look of the grand prewar buildings that line Fifth Avenue and Central Park West but with up-to-date details. When it opened in 2007, it immediately attracted a following among titans of finance and celebrities, including Mr. Weill and Lloyd Blankfein, Sting and Denzel Washington.

Weill says he'll donate the proceeds from the sale to charity. Hmmm.

Another $20B For Bank Of America

Un-fucking-real.

After a marathon negotiating session, the Bush administration agreed early Friday to give Bank of America an additional $20 billion worth of fresh capital to help it stomach the losses at Merrill Lynch, which the company acquired Jan. 1. The funds are in addition to $25 billion in TARP rescue funds Bank of America has already received. The new infusion means Bank of America has now taken $45 billion of government aid, the same amount as Citigroup Inc. In connection with the package, Bank of America slashed its quarterly dividend to a mere penny from 32 cents, agreed to further limit executive pay and and work more intensively to modify the mortgages of distressed homeowners. The government's agreement with Bank of America mentions "enhanced executive compensation restrictions" but doesn't elaborate. However, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who heads the House Financial Services Committee, last week issued an outline of his proposal to attach strings to spending the rest of the bailout money. It would slap strict limits on executive compensation _ both for companies receiving new federal money and those that already have _ including a ban on any bonuses for the 25 highest paid executives.

And Citigroup, which also got $45B, is breaking apart.

Citigroup said Friday it is splitting into two businesses as it reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $8.29 billion - its fifth straight quarterly loss. In Citigroup's reorganization, one business, Citicorp, will focus on traditional banking around the world, while the other, Citi Holdings, will hold the company's riskier assets. CEO Vikram Pandit's move will allow Citigroup to sell or spin off the Citi Holdings assets to raise cash. It also reveals the company's growing focus on back-to-basics lending and deposit-gathering, and dismantles the "financial supermarket" created a decade ago.

Citigroup Layoffs To Slam NYC

Oh, man...this is brutal.

Citigroup Inc.’s reduction of 52,000 employees announced on Monday is the second-largest job cut ever undertaken by any company on record, according to consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. Only the 1993 bloodbath at Big Blue, when IBM let go 60,000 people, was larger. Put another way, the number of jobs being eliminated at Citi is equal to the total amount lost throughout the entire U.S. financial services industry in 2006, according to Challenger Gray.

The cuts figure to have a severe impact on the New York economy, considering that Citi is the city’s second-largest private employer behind only the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System, according to Crain’s research. Citi had 27,000 staffers in the city in 2005, according to the most recent available data. That number has likely shrunk since then because Citi had already laid off 23,000 employees, or 6% of its worldwide workforce, heading into Monday’s news that it would sack another 20% in what it called “the near-term”—a phrase that seems designed to leave room for additional job cuts later.

Dooced

Michael McCarthy, a vice president at Citigroup, was fired last week because the company took issue with his popular blog, Take A Report, which often features homophobic and sexist commentary. McCarthy had been blogging from his office.

To the community of 60,000 who keep his company each day, Michael J. McCarthy looms large enough to be chosen as next month's featured speaker at the Dallas Security Traders annual convention. That helps explain why Citigroup Inc fired him.

The 35-year-old stock trader was let go earlier this week after his employers realized he was "Large," the man of bulk who operates www.takeareport.com, Bloomberg News reported. The McCarthy Website showcases women who manage to look insufficiently dressed along with bawdy commentary on celebrities.

"This employee was terminated for behavior that violated the firm's code of conduct and policies," Citigroup spokeswoman Danielle Romero-Apsilos said. McCarthy, a vice president, declined to comment on his departure from the New York-based bank. Financial industry regulatory records show he's been at Citigroup for seven years, most recently trading shares of utility and power companies.

"It's a little over the top," said Barry Ritholtz, director of equity research for New York-based Fusion IQ, who has looked at the site and has his own financial blog at www.bigpicture.typepad.com. "I can see why a conservative bank is not going to be happy with it. It's funny as hell."

The Website, created in April 2007, consists of commentary about homosexuals, excretory functions, concert reviews and college football picks. The name of the site refers to the Wall Street phrase, "take a report," used on trading desks to confirm to a customer that an order had been executed.

McCarthy lost his job after Citigroup, the biggest United States bank by assets, determined that he was using his computer at work to access and promote the site, industry sources said yesterday. Takeareport.com raises money for a military unit in Iraq to provide it with better equipment.
It also donates proceeds to Wounded Warrior Project, a Florida-based non-profit group that helps injured soldiers, according to information on the site. It has 60,000 page views a day and 1.9 million page views a month, according to Google Inc's Google Analytics unit which analyzes traffic for Websites.

"He never identifies himself," Ritholtz said. "He never identified Citigroup. To me, it looks very much like a private thing." For the Dallas Security Traders Association's convention next month, McCarthy still is listed as the keynote speaker.

(Screencap via - Pam Spaulding)