Vikram PanditPhoto: Corbis
Well, this is embarrassing. Citigroup has made the decision to shut down their Old Land hedge fund, which they bought just under a year ago for a whopping $800 million, from the guy who is now the company’s CEO. At the time, Vikram Pandit’s fund was doing well, and he personally made $165 million from the sale, according to the Journal — which enabled him to purchased Tony Curtis’s apartment and put a down payment (we hear) on Marilyn’s dress from Some Like It Hot. But under CEO Guru Ramakrishnan, the fund has been struggling, partly because of the restructuring Pandit has done at Citi since he became CEO in December.
The departures of Mr. Pandit and other high-ranking Old Lane officials for bigger jobs at Citigroup triggered a provision allowing outside investors to withdraw their money from the fund. In April, “substantially all” of them moved to do so, pulling nearly $3 billion, according to a securities filing.
Nice. According to the Journal, Pandit recused himself from the should–we–or–should–we–not–euthanize–Old Lane conversations that have been happening for the past month or so, but it’s said he held Ramakrishnan’s hand and whispered comforting words to him as it went down.
