April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc.’s board will likely survive a shareholder vote at today’s annual meeting, even after overseeing $28 billion in losses and a 77 percent stock decline last year. The U.S. government may be less forgiving.
The Treasury Department, which will become the biggest shareholder in New York-based Citigroup when the bank converts as much as $52 billion of preferred stock into common shares as soon as next month, may order the resignations of some long- serving board members to show they’re accountable, according to Peter Sorrentino, a senior portfolio manager at Cincinnati-based Huntington Asset Advisors, which has about $13.3 billion under management, including 1.5 million Citigroup shares.
“There has to be a cleaning of all that was at Citigroup,” Sorrentino said. “Anyone who was involved with the board in the lead-up to the crisis is tainted.” Board members who “sanctioned the risks that were taken and the business practices followed” will likely be replaced by the government by the end of the year, he said.
But then, we live in the accountability-free "look forward, not backward" era.