May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit will face shareholders impatient for a break from Charles O. ``Chuck'' Prince's legacy when he presents his plan tomorrow to return the biggest U.S. bank to profitability.

``He's come in with a sort of a stay-the-course mentality, `Give me time,''' said William Fitzpatrick, an analyst at Optique Capital Management in Racine, Wisconsin, which owns Citigroup shares. ``That's what we heard for three or four years from Prince. That's why you've got an antsy shareholder base. They are tired of hearing that.''

Pandit, at the end of a five-month review of the bank that took him to Warsaw, Istanbul and Seoul, may disclose his profit targets, plans for the company's 369,000 employees and assets he intends to sell, such as life insurer Primerica Corp., analysts said. The 51-year-old CEO may also offer shareholders and investors his goals for international units during tomorrow's meeting at the bank's New York City headquarters.

Citigroup, which lost $5.1 billion in the first quarter, has recorded more than $40 billion of credit losses and writedowns since the subprime mortgage market collapsed last year. Pandit, who succeeded Prince as CEO in December, has raised $44 billion in capital, more than any financial-services company, through stock sales and private offerings to investment funds controlled by foreign governments including Abu Dhabi.

Citigroup has plunged 54 percent on the New York Stock Exchange since the end of 2006 to the lowest in almost a decade, erasing gains made under former Chairman and CEO Sanford ``Sandy'' Weill, who built the company through a series of acquisitions over 17 years. Weill stepped down in 2003 and tapped Prince as his successor.

Record Loss

Prince, 58, was forced to resign last November as the bank headed for a record fourth-quarter loss of almost $10 billion.

Pandit will probably target return on equity, a gauge of how effectively the bank reinvests earnings, of 16 percent to 18 percent, which would translate into earnings per share of $3.50 to $4 by 2010 or 2011 at the earliest, according to a May 7 note from Susan Roth Katzke, an analyst at Credit Suisse who recommends investors hold the shares. Citigroup had a return on equity of 19 percent in 2006 and 3 percent last year. Earnings per share were 72 cents in 2007, compared with $4.31 in 2006.

He may also announce plans to sell the company's retail banking operations in Germany, where Citigroup has about 340 locations, CreditSights Inc. analyst David Hendler wrote in a May 4 note. Other options include exiting Brazilian retail banking and trimming operations in Asia.

Insufficient Scale

Some Asian units ``could be considered for sale or cutbacks as the company reviews its global operations, and we sense that Citi may not have sufficient scale in some of these countries to be a strong competitor,'' Hendler wrote.

Pandit has already changed managers, putting former Morgan Stanley colleague John Havens in charge of trading and investment banking, moving U.S. consumer head Steve Freiberg to head a new credit-card division and recruiting former Wells Fargo & Co. executive Terri Dial to oversee consumer banking in the U.S.

He has also announced plans that would reduce assets by at least $65 billion, according to Katzke at Credit Suisse. Last week, Citigroup agreed to sell employee-benefit joint venture CitiStreet LLC. In April, the bank agreed to sell its Diners Club International credit-card payment network and CitiCapital, a provider of leases and financing for industries including health care and construction.

Cost Cuts

Citigroup will today outline as much as $400 billion in assets that could be sold, the Financial Times reported, citing people it didn't identify. Pandit will also confirm in a meeting with analysts his plan to reduce Citigroup's cost base by about 20 percent, the FT said.

Still, Pandit can't solve all the bank's problems by ratcheting down expenses, according to Peter Sorrentino, a portfolio manager at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati, which oversees $16.7 billion, including Citigroup shares.

``My fear is they are going to do the great sacrifice at the altar of cost cutting,'' Sorrentino said. ``They will start throwing bodies out the door. Nobody makes big money cutting costs.''

The bank slashed the quarterly dividend by 41 percent in January to 32 cents a share, the first drop since the early 1990s. Oppenheimer & Co.'s Meredith Whitney has said the bank might have to cut the dividend again to bolster capital as losses escalate.

Citigroup shareholders who attended a four-hour meeting last month at the New York Hilton directed their anger at the bank's board members. Some shareholders have called for an entirely new board.

Board Members

``The board of directors will gradually get quite a facelift,'' Fitzpatrick predicted. ``You'll see a transition away from accomplished business leaders and towards more financially savvy board members.''

Some analysts and shareholders, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have called for a breakup of the bank. The labor union's pension fund holds about 100,000 Citigroup shares.

``Large-scale divestitures are not going to happen,'' Fitzpatrick said. ``To chip away at and sell some non-core assets would seem to make a lot of sense. It helps replenish your capital levels and gives you a more focused business plan.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Josh Fineman in New York at jfineman@bloomberg.net; Bradley Keoun in New York at bkeoun@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 8, 2008 21:03 EDT