Wall Street’s Boardroom Bloodletting
The most dangerous job on Wall Street is looking like the corner office. CEOs and CFOs are getting their jobs whacked faster than the post-Lufthansa heist crew in the movie Goodfellas.
The biggest bop came Tuesday morning, when the headline crossed that Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit is out at the bank, effective immediately. It's the 'effective immediately' that catches the eye, especially because the news comes a little more than two months after a Wall Street Journal story on Pandit reported that he told colleagues he intends to stay "for several years."
Somehow 'years' became just 'weeks.' You can draw your own conclusions as to why, though I have a feeling the story isn't fully written yet.
(Read More: Pandit to Step Down as Citigroup's Chiref Executive)
Pandit is just the latest in the c-suite chopping block. A few days ago it was reported that JPMorgan Chase CFO Doug Braunstein may step down and take another position within the bank. Though sources for the story claimed any such move would not be related to JPM's $6 billion in "London Whale" losses, that's a wee bit hard to believe. And it's not just the big wigs of investment banking at risk. New reports also suggest shareholders may try to oust State Street CEO Jay Hooley.
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It's quite possible the stories are completely unrelated. Maybe Pandit had an epiphany at the dinner table last night and did a 180 on whether he really wanted to keep working. Maybe I'll be named starting linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens.
What appears clear is that things have gotten better on Wall Street, and boards and shareholders are using the relative calm to do what they and the government appeared too afraid to do even a few years ago: clean house in the c-suite.
-By CNBC's Brian Sullivan