Big banker speaks some sense, public stunned

It’s about time some of these fat cats would look the truth in the eye and do what’s right for the country! Did you see the Sunday SF Chronicle’s article about the x-head of CitiGroup and HIS latest comments!? Read it here: http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Citigroup-Creator-Sandy-Weill-Says-Banks-Should-3733845.php

I wish more of our powerful Congressmen and Senators….as well as the media….would take action and do something…..

But how much did Weill make, back when he was saddled with a job? Well, according to a Forbes report in 2001, he pulled in $785 million over five years, cashing in $196 million of stock options in 2000 alone.

Then, in October of 2003, in violation of its own policy against buying its own shares from its own employees, Citi let Weill sell a quarter of his Citi shares back to the company for $264 million. This was when Weill was stepping down, clearing the way for Prince to come in and take the blame for destroying the company.

The deal then was 5.6 million shares at $47.14 a share. If 5.6 million shares was just a quarter of what Weill owned, that means he must have still been sitting on 16.8 million shares even after that 2003 stock sale.

So: if he had sold all his stock at that very moment in 2003, he would have made about $792 million. He must have felt pretty stoked about that pile of shares when he walked out the door that year.

Fast forward to this summer. On the day he gave that interview to Sorkin on Squawk Box, Citigroup shares traded at $25.79 at the close, which doesn’t sound too bad, until you figure in the fact that the company did a reverse stock split last May. Through that move, Citi turned every ten shares into a single share.

So to put this another way, Weill’s shares are actually worth ten times less now. If the stock traded at $25.79 on the day Weill blabbed to Sorkin, they were actually worth $2.58 to Weill.

To sum up: Weill was sitting on $792 million worth of shares when he left in in 2003. But fast forward a few years, and Weill’s 16.8 million shares, if he hasn’t gotten rid of them already, are now worth a total of $43,344,000 – basically nothing at all. Hell, there are black basketball players who have more than that!

Anyway, one has to wonder if Weill’s nagging poverty had anything to do with his change of heart. A few years ago, when he was still blasting Reed, he probably thought Citi would bounce back. Citi was trading between $3-$4 back then (pre-split). How could things get any worse? He couldn’t have imagined that two and a half years later, the stock would actually be lower. Could the shock of that ugly truth have played a role in his “good thing” idea?

It was strange that Squawk Box didn’t wonder about this question. As my friend put it: “I was floored that Sorkin and the other talking heads didn’t ask Weill about his Citi shares. This is the money business, and they didn’t ask the guy about money? Now we’re shy?”

Who knows if Weill managed to cash out earlier, or hedged somehow. But it’s certainly fair to wonder if maybe he didn’t, and what actually changed his mind about Too Big to Fail is that it transformed him from a God into the proud owner of $43 million lousy dollars, practically a regular person (if you exclude his prior earnings, of course).

As Scott Glenn’s “Roger the drug dealer” character icily complains in Training Day when Denzel and his corrupt LAPD pals dig up his ill-gotten nest egg: “****ing vampires want my pension!” All those years of hard work stealing the world’s money, and it’s gone in the snap of a finger!

Poor Sandy’s pension is gone. No wonder he’s rethinking things.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/when-did-sandy-weill-change-his-mind-about-too-big-to-fail-and-why-20120803#ixzz24gZTgvYB