Lunch at the Four Seasons in New York is not so much a meal as it is a performance. The restaurant is typically packed with power brokers and their admirers, assuring that any tete-a-tete gets widely noticed. So it was interesting to see Charles Prince, the chief executive of Citigroup, sharing a table there Wednesday with Sanford Weill, his predecessor at the banking giant.
The pair certainly have plenty to talk about. Under Mr. Prince, Citigroup has been making organizational and executive changes in an attempt to reverse the bank’s disappointing performance. Last month, in a move loaded with symbolism, Citi announced it would sell its trademark red umbrella, which meant severing a prominent tie to Mr. Weill, who built the financial conglomerate through a series of mergers.
Michael Mayo, an analyst at Prudential, said that Citigroup’s stock underperformed a composite index designed as a proxy for Citigroup’s mix of businesses by 46 percent in February — roughly tied with its worst performance ever. The lag “increases the pressure on Citigroup to ensure that its upcoming restructuring adds value and is more than mere window dressing,” Mr. Mayo wrote in a research note Thursday.
There have also been calls to break up Citi, a strategy that would run counter to Mr. Weill’s vision of Citi as a financial-services supermarket. In a recent interview on CNBC, Mr. Weill said that people who wanted to carve up Citi were “off their mind.”
Was Mr. Weill’s highly public lunch with Mr. Prince an attempt to show support for him in a difficult time? Did Mr. Prince — who has thus far refused to consider dismantling Mr. Weill’s creation — seek out Mr. Weill’s advice?
Or were they just both just hungry?
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