Citi's new banking chief hailed for experience

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) - In decades spent working at some of America's best-known financial institutions, Eugene McQuade developed a reputation as a "Mr. Fix-It," investment managers, industry analysts and a former boss said on Thursday.

And that may be exactly what Citigroup Inc now needs from McQuade, 60, who has held top-level executive jobs at Merrill Lynch, Freddie Mac, FleetBoston Financial and Bank of America.

McQuade was installed on Thursday as Citi's new banking chief in a major management shake-up that included replacement of the company's chief financial officer.

The native New Yorker, who joined a bank training program right out of college, came of age professionally during the real estate crisis of the early 1990s, said Terrence Murray a former chief executive officer at FleetBoston.

When lenders across the country suffered through the recession and commercial real estate prices were hit especially hard in New England, McQuade quickly developed a talent for isolating problem assets, people who know him said.

At Fleet, McQuade was part of a team that determined what should be sold and at what price, said Murray, who lured McQuade to Boston from New York about two decades ago.

"People shine at different times, and Gene shines in a crisis," Murray said in a telephone interview.

McQuade will be working in New York now, but he casts a large shadow in New England and is remembered well by many in the Boston's close-knit investment management community.

"We have been following his career for years and really like the fact that he is coming in at Citi," said Michael Mullaney, who owns Citi shares as a portfolio manager at Fiduciary Trust in Boston.

"The only strike against him is that he is a Yankees fan," Murray, his former boss at Fleet, said, referring to the bitter rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox baseball teams and their fans.

Several banking industry analysts called McQuade's appointment the right move at the right time, saying he will bring a lot of relevant experience to a company badly bruised by the financial crisis.

McQuade's experience will bolster the company's expertise in banking at a time federal regulators have questioned whether Citi's executives and board members had sufficient commercial banking experience.

The U.S. government has funneled billions of dollars in bailout money to New York-based Citi and will soon be company's biggest stock holder with a 34 percent stake.

McQuade is known for his plain-spoken manner, having reportedly told colleagues that he refused the top job at mortgage financing giant Freddie Mac because he had no interest in becoming a "pinata" for people who liked to bash government-sponsored companies.

But his move to Citi may still involve plenty of battering, several banking analysts said after the company announced its latest reorganization of top management, naming its fifth chief financial officer in five years.