Loyal Prince Viewed as a Logical Successor
Growing up two miles from Disneyland in the 1960s, an aspiring trumpet player named Chuck Prince worked in the Garden Grove High School library, earning disapproving words from a teacher for sneaking off to read Sports Illustrated after finishing his work early.
“She thought he should be doing some other chore, but I took it as a compliment,” recalled Prince’s mother, Mary. “He always excelled. He always took half as long as anyone else to get things done.”
On Wednesday, the fast- moving Charles Owen Prince, son of a Southern California construction worker, was named chief executive-to-be at Citigroup Inc. in New York, where he will succeed his longtime mentor, the legendary Sanford I. Weill, by year-end.
Prince, born in Lynwood, was raised in Gardena until his family moved to Garden Grove when he was 13.
As a youth, he was fixated on his studies, his music and getting admitted to USC, his mother said. Never one for half measures, he wound up with three USC degrees, including one from the law school.
Prince, 53, began his corporate career at U.S. Steel Corp. in 1975 before joining Commercial Credit Co., a Citigroup predecessor, in 1979.
The Manhattan resident has stayed largely in Weill’s shadow, offering legal counsel -- and planning and emceeing famous birthday bashes each March for the boss.
The latest, a $5,000-a-plate charity bash at Carnegie Hall celebrating Weill’s 70th year, raised $28 million.
“I always ask him: What are you doing next time for Sandy?” said his mother, now retired with Prince’s father, Charles Sr., in Tinton Falls, N.J.
Many banking veterans were better acquainted with another candidate for the job, Citigroup President Robert B. Willumstad, whose experience running the New York behemoth’s consumer banking franchise brought him into contact with a broad swath of the industry.
“Bob Willumstad didn’t get the job? That surprises me,” said UnionBanCal Corp. Vice Chairman Rick Hartnack, a longtime friend of Willumstad’s.
But close observers said Prince, who had helped Weill weather a series of crises, is a logical choice as Citigroup strives to escape the taint of its central role in Wall Street’s investment research scandals.
Prince, who had been chief operating officer, became head of Citigroup’s investment banking arm in September, clean- ing house, testifying before Congress and playing a key role in engineering the industry’s $1.4-billion settlement of conflict-of-interest charges. Citigroup paid the largest fine of any brokerage, $300 million.
“He’s Sandy’s right-hand man, the damage-control guy,” said Timothy Ghriskey, whose Bedford Hills, N.Y., hedge fund owns Citigroup shares.
Ghriskey believes Prince won the confidence of regulators while working out the settlement and that they might have encouraged his appointment.
Prince’s life took a key turn about 35 years ago, his mother said, when another well-known Orange County product, the Righteous Brothers, proved less impressed with his talents.
Having idolized Louis Armstrong while growing up, Prince headed off for USC hoping to become a professional musician, his mother said -- until the blue-eyed soul singers rejected a composition he offered them.
Prince decided instead to major in history. He graduated in 1971 and four years later received a master’s degree in international relations along with his law degree.
Prince’s father made a solid living during the 1950s and ‘60s boom years in Southern California, plastering walls and later becoming a union business agent. But though he was able to afford an education for his son, there were few social advantages the Princes could offer.
“A lot of people these days know somebody who knows somebody,” Mary Prince said. Her son “didn’t have anything like that. I know I sound bragging, but he did it all on his own.”
