Mike Corbat, the temporary chief executive of Citi Holdings, the business division of US banking giant Citi which includes its asset management, brokerage and local consumer finance arms, will take on this role on a permanent basis.

Mr Corbat has served as the interim CEO of Citi Holdings since Citi’s realignment into Citicorp and Citi Holdings was announced on 16 January this year. The bank split into the two divisions as part of a restructuring of the firm, which has suffered heavy losses from the credit crunch.

Going forward, Mr Corbat will continue to work with Gary Crittenden, the newly appointed chairman of Citi Holdings. Their focus is to set the strategic course for Citi Holdings’ businesses, while tightly managing risks and losses and maximising the value of these assets, Citi said in a statement.

Mr Corbat was most recently chief executive of Citi’s Global Wealth Management unit, and prior to this was head of the Global Corporate Bank and Global Commercial Bank.

"With more than 25 years at Citi in a variety of leadership roles, Mike brings a tremendous amount of experience, insight and energy to this post… Mike will work closely with us to accelerate our assessment of strategic opportunities for these businesses, as we also seek to optimise their performance through this challenging market environment," said Citi CEO Vikram Pandit.

In its full year results statement, Citi said its global wealth management’s net income crashed by 94 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, falling to $29 million from $524 million in the last three months of 2007. For the whole of 2008, its net wealth management income fell by 45 per cent to $1.09 billion from a year earlier.

Citi said its global wealth management revenues fell by 18 per cent last year from 2007, with market declines in North America and Asia taking a particularly heavy toll. Client assets under fee-based management dropped by 35 per cent to $332 billion at the end of last year, the bank said.