Economic Calendar

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Citigroup’s Pandit Lists Greenwich Home at $4.3 Million

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By Oshrat Carmiel - Apr 19, 2012 12:28 AM GMT+0700

Vikram Pandit, the chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc. (C), put his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, on the market for $4.3 million, about 5 percent more than he paid for it almost 11 years ago.

The six-bedroom, six-bathroom house on Pecksland Road was put up for sale on April 4, according to property listing records. The 5,623-square-foot (522-square-meter) colonial, built in 1939, sits on 2.37 acres (0.96 hectares) that include an in-ground pool, gardens and “rolling grounds.”

Vikram Pandit, CEO of CitiGroup, in New York. Photographer: Mark Lennihan/AP Photo

“Traditional elegance at its best,” reads the listing by Debby Gardiner, a broker with Sotheby’s International Realty in Greenwich. “This timeless residence includes a wood-paneled library, updated eat-in kitchen with adjacent family room, lower level playroom and two-car garage.”

Shannon Bell, a spokeswoman for New York-based Citigroup, didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message and e-mail. Gardiner said by phone that she couldn’t immediately comment. The listing was reported this week by the Real Estalker blog.

Pandit, 55, bought the home in June 2001 for $4.1 million, according to the Greenwich assessor’s office, which estimated its market value at $3.2 million in October 2010. The property’s annual tax bill, on which Pandit is current, is $22,887, according to the town’s tax collector’s office.

Falling Prices

The median sales price of a home in Greenwich, which lies about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of midtown Manhattan, fell 32 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to $1.33 million, according to data compiled by agent John Cooke of Prudential Connecticut Realty. Much of the sales activity was for houses less than $2 million, the data show.

Two homes priced between between $4 million and $4.9 million changed hands in the quarter, compared with seven a year ago.

Through the end of March, there were 38 homes listed for sale between $4 million and $5 million, according to data compiled by Mark Pruner, a Greenwich-based agent with Prudential Connecticut Realty and author of the real estate blog Greenwichstreets.com. That’s about a two-year supply of inventory in that price range, he said.

“It’s a good time to put it on because we do have a lot of people who are looking to spend their bonus at this time of year,” Pruner said. “However, most of the activity by the people with the bonuses has been in the $1.5 to $3 million range.”

Citigroup, the third-biggest U.S. bank, gave Pandit $14.9 million in total compensation for 2011, including $1.67 million in salary and a $5.33 million cash bonus, according to regulatory filings. The lender’s shareholders yesterday rejected an executive pay plan in a non-binding vote amid criticism it let the CEO collect rewards too easily.

Pandit lists the Citigroup building at 399 Park Ave. in New York as his primary mailing address for all Greenwich tax bills and municipal correspondence, a sign that he doesn’t reside full time at the Connecticut home, according to the assessor’s office. Pandit also owns a co-operative apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which he bought from the estate of late actor Tony Randall in 2007 for $17.9 million, city property records show.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oshrat Carmiel in New York at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net




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