[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Citigroup isn't catching a break.

Just short of 2 weeks after former CEO Vikram Pandit resigned under a cloud of questions and rumors, Citigroup faced another obstacle, which may or may not cause more long-term effects.  After Hurricane Sandy stormed downtown Manhattan, the 3rd-largest bank shed a light on where it stands:

• its office at 111 Wall St. will be unusable for weeks, displacing 1,800 employees, mostly in operations, technology, and administrative roles, according to a bank spokesperson
• a building housing senior capital-markets executives lost power after Hurricane Sandy hit Lower Manhattan
• the closure of 388 and 390 Greenwich St., the bank's headquarters for its trading and investment-banking operations, where more than 7,000 employees work.
• the relocation of trading operations
• the shuttering of hundreds of branches

Going forward, the firm will carry on.  Newly minted CEO Michael Corbat, 52, wrote in an internal memo, "We will continue to use backup sites and work-from-home strategies as necessary.  As difficult as the last few days have been, the next few are just as important and will surely present challenges."

In the meantime, the firm has alternate location it can use to ensure "continuity of operations," the bank said, including its headquarters on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan.

For further details, go to [Bloomberg, 10/30/12].