State Street Says Citigroup Promised Not To Be Horrid

Like Neville Chamberlain, David Spina has a piece of paper. On it is written an agreement between Citigroup and State Street, at the time they set up the CitiStreet joint venture, in which the giant American financial conglomerate promised not

By None

Like Neville Chamberlain, David Spina has a piece of paper. On it is written an agreement between Citigroup and State Street, at the time they set up the CitiStreet joint venture, in which the giant American financial conglomerate promised not to bid for State Street for ten years. Since there are still six and half years of the agreement left to run, that ought to mean Citigroup cannot buy the Boston-based bank until 2009. Something a little stronger than the idea that agreements are more valuable to shareholders than money might be more reassuring to staff. As John Pierpont Morgan famously observed of the investment banking business: “I don’t want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do: I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do.”

«