Six months later, Pandit was asked to investigate the bank’s books and discovered what would turn out to be billions in subprime losses—leading Chuck Prince to step down as CEO. Rubin immediately lobbied to have Pandit replace him, but there was unexpected resistance from a number of board members, including Alain Belda, chairman of Alcoa, and C. Michael Armstrong, the former AT&T CEO, who did not believe Pandit was ready to lead and thought Citi had overpaid to get him in the first place. Meanwhile, Citigroup founder Sandy Weill was advocating for Tim Geithner. [emphasis added.]
--Noam Scheiber