Pandit in Public
The reputational resurrection of Vikram Pandit continued this week, as WNET New York Public Media announced that it would honor the Citigroup chief executive next month at the public broadcaster's annual fundraising gala.
Recognized for his "invaluable support and commitment" to New York and its public television stations, Pandit will be interviewed on stage at the April 7 dinner, WNET said, to be held at a swank Park Avenue event space about a dozen blocks up the street from Citi's headquarters.
Previous honorees at the yearly event have included Bank of New York Mellon President Gerald Hassell and JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon. Not bad company for a guy Portfolio.com crowned just two years ago as the 20th-worst CEO of all time.
Capital Concerns
If the Federal Reserve doesn't want to stand between widows and orphans and the dividends they want their bank stocks to pay, Stuart Plesser doesn't mind taking up the cause.
Plesser, a credit analyst at Standard & Poor's, released a report Thursday raising concerns about banks that are moving aggressively to return capital to shareholders now that they have gotten the Fed's blessing to proceed with their capital plans.
"Although we acknowledge that capital levels in the U.S. banking industry have improved significantly since 2008, we think that they need to build further," said Plesser, whose report suggested that banks proceed with caution. "We don't necessarily believe that maintaining a modest dividend ratio will hurt ratings, but we are more cautious of share buybacks that could accelerate the payout ratio well above these levels."
Equal Recognition
And the winner of the most gay-, lesbian-, bisexual- and transgender-friendly workplace in banking is … everybody.
The Human Rights Campaign's annual Corporate Equality Index has found banking to be one of the most gay-friendly industries in the country, with all of the country's largest banks receiving perfect scores. The only industry with more companies on the HRC's "Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality" list is the legal industry.
Along with the five biggest banks, plenty of regionals, including SunTrust, Harris Bank, KeyCorp and PNC made the 37-company list. All were identified as having robust nondiscrimination policies and domestic partner benefits that are every bit as good as the benefits offered to heterosexual couples, such as family leave, adoption assistance and joint retirement plans. They engage in LGBT-focused philanthropy, and also have active intracompany organizations, such as Harris' "Lions Pride" group.
Some banks even provide benefits above and beyond what the Human Rights Campaign awards for. JPMorgan Chase's health care plan, for example, will cover the cost of transgender surgery and associated hormone replacement surgery. PNC's and SunTrust's, however, won't.
Swiss Myth
Gregoire Bordier wants U.S. investors to know that the James Bond version of Swiss banking is inaccurate.
In fact, it's much less exciting than that.
Switzerland is viewed by Americans "as the place you go to evade taxes and all those bad things, but that is long gone," said Bordier, a senior partner at the Swiss private bank Bordier & Cie., during a recent stop at the office of American Banker.
"It was a myth originally," he said. "Of course, there are some incidents and specific cases, but clearly it has never been as categorical as it has been relayed in the press and some action movies." Swiss banking giant UBS AG, for one, has been mired in a two-year ordeal in which it was forced to hand over the names of wealthy clients to the U.S. government and pay fines of $780 million as part of the Internal Revenue Service's crackdown on tax evasion.
Bordier was in the U.S. on a marketing tour of sorts to help promote the message of the Swiss Private Bankers Association, a 77-year-old organization with 13 member banks that have roughly $600 billion under management and more than 7,000 employees worldwide. The SPBA is trying to relay to investors around the world that Swiss bank accounts are beneficial for many reasons, including currency and geographic diversification.
Now, "the idea is to say 'yes, you should have your assets in Switzerland … but don't use this for tax purposes,' " Bordier said.
