Ex-CFO says Citi needs better bosses, not breakup

By Joseph A. Giannone and Svea Herbst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Financial Officer Todd Thomson, forced out in January following an ugly tussle with ex-CEO Charles Prince, said the largest U.S. bank doesn't need to be broken up, it just needs better leaders.

Thomson, speaking at the Reuters Finance Summit in New York on Tuesday, also said he has the skills and background to run the company, which is looking for a new chief executive. Thomson said he has not been contacted about the CEO vacancy and does not know if he would accept an offer.

"I fundamentally don't believe Citi's issues are ones of strategy. I fundamentally don't believe the issues at Citi are ones of being in too many products or too many businesses. I fundamentally believe it's an issue of execution," Thomson told Reuters.

Citi's financial performance and stock price, constantly criticized during Prince's four years, recently prompted some analysts and investors to urge a breakup of the company.

Prince resigned as CEO under pressure on Sunday after Citi warned it faced up to an estimated $11 billion of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) losses, on top of $6.8 billion in third-quarter write-downs and losses on assets hard hit by this summer's credit crunch. Prince had run Citi for four years.

Sir Win Bischoff, 66, chairman of Citi Europe, was named acting chief executive at Citi on Sunday after Prince resigned.

Thomson, a former private equity investor lured from General Electric (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in 1998 by former CEO Sanford Weill to head strategy at Citigroup, argues the company is no bigger or more complicated than its rivals.

"If you look at every other significant bank out there today, they do exactly the same thing Citi does. There's nothing that Citi does that JPMorgan (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) doesn't do, that BofA (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) doesn't do, that UBS