Winning Brands Corporation (WNBD)

[User-65225]

IMO "typical" pinkies sell a bunch of stock so they can buy nice things for themselves... Not pump $$$ into marketing to support their sales efforts...

Im more skeptical when i see a lavish lifestyle, while shareholders are hurting... Anybody remember Mario Pino? lol

Bailed out bank to spend $15 million on CEO’s office
20/03/2009 9:00:00 AM

By Stuart Fagg, ninemsn Money

Citigroup, which has taken $65 billion in bailout money from the US government, will spend $15 million on a new office for its CEO.

Citigroup’s CEO Vikram Pandit, who said last November that the bank would axe 52,000 staff, told the US Congress last month that “I get the new reality, and I’ll make sure Citi gets it as well”. But US politicians believe the renovation is the latest example of corporate excess.

“I think our friends in the banking and financial universe have to understand that they have to stop living in an alternate parallel reality,” said Senator Robert Menendez. “People simply don’t understand those types of expenditures.”

Citigroup, which has received the most bailout money of any US bank, claimed that the work will “generate savings in the next few years” that would recoup the cost of the project.

Several of the bank’s former CEOs gained a reputation for eccentric and expensive office furnishings.

According to a Business Week magazine story from 1995, former Citigroup chief Sandy Weill was “obsessed” with fireplaces and had one installed in a 106th floor office. The fireplace earned a spot in the Guiness Book of Records as the world’s highest fireplace.

The $15 million office renovation is the latest embarrassment for Citigroup. A January report in the New York Post said that Citigroup executives rushed through the purchase of a brand new 12-seater luxury private jet just after receiving bailout funds.

In January, it emerged that John Thain, ex-CEO of Merrill Lynch, which was rescued by Bank of America, spent $2.9 million hiring Barack Obama's decorator to redesign his office as the bank was being pummeled by the subprime fallout last year.

The former chief executive of Merrill Lynch was at the same time axing thousands of jobs and slashing expenses as panic gripped the financial market.

According to reports in the US press, Thain spent a total of $2.9 million on remodelling his office, including $133,000 on a rug, $38,000 on a 'mahogany pedestal table' and $2,148 on a parchment rubbish bin.