Assessing the Mess at Citi

A CEO Prince is undone by a real one and a former mentor, leaving an ex-Treasury Secretary with a pile of rotten assets as a recession looms

Tobias Everke / Focus Agency / WPN

Robert E. Rubin, Director & Chairman of the Executive Committee, Citigroup Inc.

This story features a man named Prince, an actual (Saudi) prince, a billionaire financial legend, a former Treasury Secretary and a British knight with a German accent. That, plus tens of billions of dollars in losses and a financial crunch that Americans may feel for years.

The man named Prince is Chuck Prince, who lost his job as Citigroup CEO on Sunday, Nov. 4. The immediate precipitating event was $8 billion to $11 billion (they don't know for sure yet) in fresh losses for his company related to subprime mortgages. Stepping down, Prince said, was the "only honorable course for me...

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