Citigroup Votes No on Pay, Yes on Chairman

Citigroup shareholders voted down its board's proposal for executive compensation for five of its top executives and named Michael O'Neill chairman six weeks after former Chairman Richard D. Parsons said he would step down after 16 years as a director.

At today's meeting, 55% of shareholders voted against the board's proposal for executive compensation for five of the top executives whose pay must be disclosed.

Chief Executive Vikram Pandit took home $14.9 million in cash and stock options for his work in 2011. Capital markets head John Havens earned $13 million.

The shareholders' vote is nonbinding and Citigroup won't have to respond to it.

Michael O'Neill was officially named Parsons' successor. O'Neill, 65, ran the Bank of Hawaii from 2000 to 2004 and was vice chairman and chief financial officer at Bank of America's predecessor BankAmerica Corp. from 1995 through 1999.

"Citi has been going through a far reaching transformation since I joined the board in 2009," O'Neill said in a statement. "I am pleased to have been part of that process and to have worked with Vikram and his management team as they worked to restore Citi to a position of strength and set a strategy to align itself with the global trends."

Stockholders also elected Franz Humer and Joan Spero to the board. Humer, 65, was the chief executive officer of the Roche Group, the pharmaceutical company, from 1998 until 2008. Spero, 67, is a senior research scholar at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and a previous Under Secretary of State for Economics, Business and Agricultural Affairs during the Clinton administration.

Write to Julie Steinberg at Julie.Steinberg@dowjones.com