Citigroup to name new U.S. consumer chief in shuffle : US Business

By Dan Wilchins and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc is hiring Terri Dial, credited with reviving Lloyds TSB Group's core UK retail banking, to take over its flagging U.S. consumer business, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Dial will become Citigroup's global head of consumer strategy, but the 58-year-old California native's primary task will be to improve U.S. retail banking and consumer finance, the source said.

She will succeed Steven Freiberg at the helm of U.S. consumer operations. Freiberg, who used to run the bank's North American credit card business, will take over the card business worldwide.

Lloyds said Dial was leaving but did not say where she was going. Lloyds shares dipped 2 percent in Friday trading in London on news of her departure. She has been with the bank since 2005.

Separately, Citigroup said it replaced Ali Hackett and Tom Tesauro, the co-heads of global equity finance and prime brokerage, according to a memo obtained by Reuters. Nick Roe, who had run the European part of that business, will replace them as head of global prime finance, reporting to hedge fund services chief Steve Bowman, who wrote the memo.

The changes are the latest under Vikram Pandit, who replaced Charles Prince as chief executive in December. Pandit has been carrying out a top-to-bottom review of Citigroup to find ways to boost earnings and revenue, cut costs and help rejuvenate a stock that has fallen more than 50 percent in the last year.

Citigroup is also likely to announce a shuffling of its retail and corporate banking structure, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Citigroup plans to create Asia and Europe divisions, consisting of consumer and corporate banking operations in the respective regions, the newspaper said. Ajay Banga, who runs international consumer operations, will lead the Asia unit, but it is unclear who will lead the Europe unit, it said.

Pandit has also named new risk management chiefs, and installed former Morgan Stanley colleague John Havens to run daily operations in the securities unit, which includes investment banking, trading and alternative investments.

BATTLING RIVALS

Citigroup still must show it can grow amid expectations that losses will continue to mount from subprime mortgages, leveraged loans and deteriorating consumer credit.

The bank lost $9.83 billion in the fourth quarter, hurt by $18.1 billion of write-downs and credit losses tied to subprime mortgages. Many analysts expect a large first-quarter loss.

Its U.S. consumer business lost $432 million in the fourth quarter, and its full-year profit fell 51 percent to $4.11 billion.

In the last five months Citigroup has raised some $30 billion of capital and slashed its dividend to preserve more, yet analysts have said years of underinvestment have left it in an uphill battle to compete effectively with rivals such as Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co .

The bank has shed more than 6,000 jobs this year, and more cuts are widely expected, including in the investment bank.

Citigroup spokesmen Jonathan Woodier in London and Richard Tesvich in Hong Kong declined to comment.

Before joining Lloyds, Dial worked at Wells Fargo & Co for nearly three decades, rising to become chief executive of its banking unit. She joined Lloyds' board in 2005 and also chairs the retail committee of the British Bankers' Association, according to her official biography.

Citigroup were off 65 cents at $21.14 in midday trade on the New York Stock Exchange. They closed last March 28 at $50.96.

(Additional reporting by Saeed Azhar, Michael Flaherty and Steve Slater; Editing by David Cowell and John Wallace)

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