Charles Prince, chief executive officer, Citigroup has vehemently denied reports that the banking major is planning to shed thousands of jobs and focus outside North America for growth and termed it as 'press voyeurism'.
While it is unclear how many of Citi's high-cost jobs could be moved to India where Citigroup already has about 22,000 employees, Prince said India has been the single biggest driver of growth for group's international operations.
Earlier on Monday both New York Times and the Wall street Journal had said Citigroup plans to announce a broad restructuring plan that could involve elimination or relocation of thousands of high-cost jobs.
Citigroup Inc executives are putting the finishing touches on a restructuring plan that is likely to involve around 15,000 job cuts and a charge against earnings of more than $1 billion, WSJ added.
The review is being spearheaded by chief operating officer Robert Druskin, who is due to report his recommendations internally by the end of the week. The company expects to unveil the plan by the time it reports its first-quarter results on April 16, the day before Citigroup's annual meeting, the Journal reported on Monday.
While the plan isn't final, Druskin is contemplating a roughly five per cent reduction in Citigroup's world-wide work force of 327,000, the Journal said quoting people familiar with the matter.
One possibility is to reduce jobs by not replacing some of the 30,000 to 50,000 Citigroup employees who leave the company each year, one such person said.
A Citigroup spokeswoman said the review is continuing and that the company will announce its plans on or before April 16. The cuts, said the paper, could slice broadly through New York-based Citigroup's global banking empire.
The company, which does business in 100 countries, has 8,100 branches and about 200 million clients. Citigroup operates a global private bank that caters to wealthy customers. It also provides advice on some of the world's biggest acquisition deals, competing with the likes of Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley.
Last year, Citigroup expanded its banking and consumer-finance operations in emerging markets like Mexico, India, and Turkey.