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Did you see that Vik Pandit, talking up Citigroup to Business Week, told the magazine that "you couldn't design a better footprint or get a better set of assets if you had to build a bank from scratch. This is clearly the right model." Really? Pandit's take on reality is materially different from mine.

Here's a bank that's so rife with unneeded costs that it's embarking on its second cost-cutting program in less than a year, has such a shortage of proven managers that Pandit is having to import a new team more or less wholesale from Citi competitors, and that's endured more pain from the subprime meltdown than just about any firm on Wall Street. What are the advantages of size and product breadth again?

I was hoping Pandit would take a fresh look at the Citi model and consider spinning off some key businesses as prelude to a broader breakup. This is not an encouraging early indication of where he's headed. If he keeps the wacky "One Citi" strategy, all hope will be lost...

Source: Discouraging Signs from Citi's Pandit