Banks, Stepping Down | featured news

Vikram Pandit abruptly stepped down as CEO of Citigroup on Tuesday, shocking Wall Street, after steering the bank through the 2008 financial crisis and the choppy years that followed.

An executive resigning from the investment bank Goldman Sachs says other executives there referred to clients as "muppets." Greg Smith wrote a blistering essay about the company that was published Wednesday in The New York Times.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said he plans to step down in June at the end of a five-year term in which he led the institution through a volatile period in the global economy.

Freddie Mac's chief executive, Charles E. "Ed" Haldeman Jr., will step down by the end of the year, the regulator of the company said on Wednesday.