^Not investment advice, just lulz.

It’s been a while since we’ve turned our attention to the Bandit, but you can’t possibly have thought we’d let this one go by without comment. While Citi may not have discovered the art of turning lead into gold, they’ve figured out a way to make their share price increase by 1,000%. And that way is, of course, a 10:1 reverse split.

Yep, as of Monday morning, Citi will no longer be a single-digit midget trading at four-fitty and change. It will be trading closer to $45 – but with only one tenth as many shares outstanding. That should render its market cap unchanged, but, theoretically, should have some kind of psychological effect, as if we are supposed to think a $45 stock is less worthy of mockery and more worthy of investment. And, using this logic, maybe they should’ve just gone for a 100:1 or so reverse split and aimed for the Googlesphere.

True, many fund managers won’t touch anything that trades under $5 – so there’s that. But there’s also a reputation for reverse splits to often be accompanied with a sense of sick desperation to stay afloat, which is never good.

And then there’s the whole volume thing. Low share prices always equal more volume. For example, when you go to a strip club, you can engage in a whole lot more transactions with a pile of singles than you can with a twenty. $C, with an average volume of 421m shares changing hands a day over the last 3 months, has accounted for a good chunk of the volume in the markets – making it rain like Lil’ Wayne of the Dow, if you will. With that volume no longer in play, will it start to look like the whole market is stagnating? Is the Bandit gonna screw it up for everyone?

And, of course, the LOLFed question… will we see $C make its way back to the Dollar Menu despite this skullduggery?

We’re left boggling over what kind of operation Bandit is running over there, these days. After everything else that has gone south on his watch, this latest news is just one step too far: Citi is firing hot chicks, for being hot (allegedly).

A Latina lovely says her bosses at Citigroup canned her for flaunting her ample assets at a midtown bank.

Dangerously curvy Debrahlee Lorenzana contends her ex-bosses at Citibank in the Chrysler Building banned her from wearing sexy outfits or heels deemed “too distracting” for male coworkers.

“I can’t help it that I have curves,” Lorenzana told the Daily News.

“And I’m not going to go eat and gain 50 or 100 pounds because my job wants me to be the same size as everyone else.”

Ha ha, all the other ladies at Citi are enormous fatties.

If there’s even an ounce of truth to this, Citi is the worst company that ever existed. You know, some of us would kill to work in an office with hot MILF-y eye candy. Firing someone for being too sexy is like divorcing your spouse because they keep buying you nice things with their enormous trust fund. It just doesn’t make sense at the end of the day.

Of course, that’s not exactly what happened. Debrahlee – which, I’m sorry, probably not helping matters here, but that is totally a stripper name – claims she complained about being sexually harassed by everyone with functioning eyesight, and that her employer’s response was to move her to another branch as retaliation for having the gall to speak up. The she was fired a month later. Women! Am I right? Yeah, this guy knows what I’m talkin’ about.

Either that or she was terrible at her job and was fired for that, which is Citi’s story and they’re sticking to it. Debrahlee is currently appearing on the center stage at some other bank, where one can only assume she’s still the recipient of “deposit box in the rear” jokes on the daily.

The Bandit gets himself a million-dollar handler:

Citigroup Inc. chief executive Vikram Pandit reached outside the Wall Street financial world to enlist a top deputy to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to buff up his and the bank’s image and mend often-stormy relations with regulators.

Edward Skyler, 36-year-old New York Deputy Mayor for operations, will become Citigroup’s executive vice president, global public affairs, in charge of all internal and external communications, reporting directly to Mr. Pandit and serving on the bank’s 18-member executive committee.

The choice of Mr. Skyler was driven by the need to show off Mr. Pandit’s progress and have better relationships with governments and regulators at all levels, according to people familiar with the selection process.

Interesting – and probably sensible – choice of a NY insider instead of a Washington insider; it tells you where The Bandit thinks he needs the most help. $C was serious about selecting someone from Bloomberg’s staff, attempting to oust a different deputy before settling on Ed, who started in NYC’s parks and rec department (no wonder everybody on that show wants to get into politics) and also served as Bloomberg’s press secretary, where he became notorious for responding to reporters with colorful phrases such as “Go f–k yourself” in lieu of “No comment”. He is also experienced in tackling muggers, so if anyone ever attempts to swipe The Bandit’s BlackBerry, there will be hell to pay, we are sure.

And we hope he reads blogs.

To Treasury, letting the boys at $C hide behind the bandit mask is not just a privilege, but a right:

The U.S. Treasury Department refused to disclose names of Citigroup Inc. executives who haggled over bailout terms in late 2008 after the bank said they might be harassed like the American International Group Inc. workers pilloried for taking big bonuses.
The Treasury decided to withhold the names earlier in 2009 when processing a similar FOIA request from News Corp.’s Fox Business Network, department spokesman Andrew Williams said. The Treasury gave New York-based Citigroup a chance to preview the documents, as required under federal rules, and the bank objected to the release of the names, Williams said. Treasury agreed, he said.

How do you think that convo went?

Timmay: Hay we need to tell Fox News who kissed Hank Paulson’s shoes to get ur moneys
Bandit: Noooooo I hate when ppl mail my execs fake ‘thrax, it makes them cry
Timmay: OMG you have a bunch of emos on ur payroll
Bandit: That’s what happens when you limit exec comp
Timmay: oh burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn

Anyhow, Fox has given up on its FOIA request for the names (any bored reader is encouraged to pick up where they left off) and is now pursuing more deets on their executive compensation negotiations, which are probably more scandalous stuff. $C objects to the request because they don’t want this information getting in the hands of their competitors, but, like, I guess we could pretend for a minute that this was public money these guys were being paid with and that we were entitled to know where it was going, or something like that.

Local hero Bandit finds himself back in the news today, not so much because he has done something terrible, but rather that I found this image I made a while back and wanted an excuse to use it. Bandit finds himself in Washington today to speak before the panel that oversees (oversaw, I guess?) TARP and explain how his life is immeasurably better because of it.

Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit plans to tell U.S. taxpayers he’s grateful for the $45 billion bailout that helped stave off a deposit run at the bank in 2008, a person close to the company said.

Pandit, scheduled to appear in Washington today before a panel overseeing the bank-bailout program, will acknowledge that the infusion stabilized Citigroup, said the person, who requested anonymity because the planned testimony isn’t public. Pandit will thank the government for providing the money, the person said.

Bandit’s “thanks, bro” is expected to soothe anyone and everyone who was ever upset about the failout, because the problem was never with handing money we didn’t have over to the very people who caused the problem they suddenly needed rescuing from, it was the lack of gratitude. Shucks, now that he’s expressed his gratefulness, why don’t we hand him a lot more money? Eighteen katrillion dollars seems only fair.

But this business about acknowledging that the money stabilized Citi? Is it really necessary for him to hop on a plane (he doesn’t take Acela, we assume) to come tell an oversight panel something they already know? This would be like me scheduling an entire day with my boss to tell him I keep the network running. This is the kind of thing that could just as easily have been demonstrated by emailing Elizabeth Warren a picture of Citigroup Center without a “For Sale” sign on it, with a note attached that said “thx XOXOXO”

And really, his company got $45 billion. I’m not entirely sure a simple “Thanks, next three generations of taxpayers” is really sufficient. That is less money than it would cost to bail out Greece, which is an entire country. Even a $20 toaster as a wedding gift warrants a nice handwritten thank-you note. Besides repaying the failout money, does anyone have any suggestions for what Bandit can do to truly express gratitude for not making him the captain of a sinking bank?