Citigroup (NYSE: C) will be replacing the current head of its Japanese unit, Douglas Peterson, with Darren Buckley, after Peterson oversaw the sale of many of the company’s assets in the region, according to several sources.
Buckley is now in charge of Citibank Japan Ltd. The Wall Street Journal reported the change yesterday without citing a source. Citigroup’s New York spokeswoman, Danielle Romero-Apsilos, declined to comment on the story. Neither Peterson or Buckley could be reached by the press since the story surfaced after business hours.
Buckley was named president of Citibank in Japan in September 08 after running the company’s Japanese consumer-finance unit, CFJ KK. Buckley jointed the Citigroup’s London unit in 1992. Peterson will return Citibank’s North American operations to assist the company in repaying the company’s federal bailout, WSJ reported.
Peterson joined Citigroup in 1982 and served as the company’s chief auditor beginning in 2000. In May of 2004, he was named the head of Citibank’s Japan unit. Peterson told Japanese lawmakers that his goal was to fix the compliance breaches that occurred in the bank that cost the company its private banking license in Japan.
In May, Citigroup announced that it would be selling most of its Japanese retail brokerage and parts of its investment-banking business to Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. for 545 billion yen, or about $5.8 billion.
