According to the Financial Times, Citigroup's CEO Chuck Prince is supporting a proposal to move its stock research unit back under an institutional clients division. The FT suggests that this is basically a move to bring the unit back under the investment banking umbrella. That may be hard to justify to regulators and retail clients. Recall that in the tainted research scandals--remember Jack Grubman?--Citigroup was forced to move the research unit to its Smith Barney private client business. What's the point? To develop synergies between investment banking and stock research like the old days really isn't a good idea. Unless they want the analysts to somehow support the hedge fund managers.   

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