NEW YORK – Yet another hedge fund manager has gone tilting at windmills, this one calling for the break up of Citigroup into four distinct publicly tradedcompanies.
The idea (or dream, more like) is not lost to investors, who have grumbled for two years that Citi’s stock is underperforming. And it wouldn’t be the first time this year ahedge fund manager has called for the break up of a Wall Street company.
Last spring, a whole bunch of ex-executives of Morgan Stanley (nyse: MWD – news –people ) pushed for, and ultimately failed to get, a dismantling of that firm. Their proposal wassimilar to the proposal from hedge fund manager Scott Sipprelle, who had also been agitating for a break up of Morgan Stanley as recently as last December.
A break up of Citi would be the death of an ambitious experiment in building a true financial supermarket.
