CHICAGO (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc (N:C) Chairman Mike O'Neill said all options were being considered to find a successor to replace him when he steps down in the next 12 months, after reaching the retirement age of 72.
The options include having Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Mike Corbat taking on the additional role of chairman, O'Neill said at the Wall Street bank's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday.
O'Neill added he was "a bit agnostic" about keeping the roles of chairman and CEO separate.
Citi's board of directors preferred to have different people in the two roles, O'Neill had said at last year's shareholder meeting.
Corbat, 57, has spent at least 20 years at Citigroup and was installed as CEO with O'Neill's backing in October 2012 when the board fired Vikram Pandit. O'Neill was named chairman in April that year after becoming a board member in 2009.
Wall Street welcomed the O'Neill-Corbat pairing in part because of O'Neill's record boosting shareholder returns a decade earlier when he overhauled Bank of Hawaii Corp, which had businesses sprawling across the Pacific Ocean.
STEINER PROPOSAL FAILS
At Tuesday's annual shareholder meeting, a proposal to lower the stock ownership threshold required to call a special meeting of shareholders failed narrowly with 49.8 percent of votes cast in favor, a preliminary count showed.
Citigroup investor Kenneth Steiner had submitted a proposal to lower the threshold to allow shareholders owning 15 percent of Citi's outstanding common stock to call special meetings. The current threshold in Citi's by-laws stands at 25 percent.
Special meetings can be held between annual shareholder meetings, and can be called by investors to vote on important matters such as electing new directors.
"Our board continues to believe that a 25 percent threshold strikes an appropriate balance," Citi said in its proxy http://citi.us/2qYn4Tr statement, and recommended shareholders vote against Steiner's proposal.
Influential proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services Inc had recommended that Citi lower the threshold.
More than 94 percent of votes cast at the meeting backed the 2017 executive pay awards, Citi said.
The compensation included a 48 percent raise for Corbat in 2017, a year in which Citi made more money, but fell short of earlier targets.
The bank said all director candidates were elected with at least 97.9 percent of votes cast.