The Wall Street Journal reports that Citi CEO Vikram Pandit has appointed Brian Leach, who previously was the chief risk officer for hedge fund Old Lane (which Pandit founded), as the company's CRO. Pandit told staff in a memo that 'as our industry grapples with one of the most difficult periods in market history, we at Citi are moving aggressively to transform our risk-management culture into a significant competitive advantage'.

Reuters reports that Goldman Sachs has appointed Michael Sherwood, co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International, and Michael Evans, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia, to become vice chairmen of the firm, alongside John Weinburg.

The Financial Times reports that Merrill Lynch has confirmed that it is to restate 3 years of cashflow statements after the firm discovered that it had overstated the value of derivatives financing transactions. The restatements will not, however, result in any changes to earnings or the firm's balance sheet.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) saw its 2007 pre-tax profits rise 8% to $19.7bn, despite writing down some $4.9bn in assets for bad loans and credit market-related items. CEO Fred Goodwin said that 'whilst the future seems as difficult as ever to predict, it's clear that we enter 2008 with real momentum behind our organic growth'. And organic growth, too, is on the mind of many analysts and RBS investors, who remain concerned about the affect the recent acquisition of parts of Dutch bank ABN AMRO will have on future earnings. Bloomberg quotes Howard Wheeldon, an analyst from BGC Partners, said that 'we may have to wait several years to see if ABN AMRO delivers shareholder value. I wouldn't like to see any further acquisitions'.

The Financial Times reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has come under fire for suggesting that SocGen CEO Daniel Bouton should fall on his sword over that $7.1bn rogue trading affair. Laurence Parisot, head of the French employers' federation Medef, said earlier this week that is was up to the firm's board to force through those kind of decisions if they deemed it appropriate, and that politicians shouldn't get involved in business matters.

Reuters reports that Standard Chartered has reported a 27% rise in its 2007 profits, which came in at $4.04bn. The bank took a $300m writedown on SIV and asset securitization assets.

Finally, The Wall Street Journal reports that two former UBS staff pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges related to an insider-trading scheme involving trading ahead of changes UBS analysts made to certain company stock ratings. Mitchel Guttenberg, who was a member of UBS's Investment Review Committe, and David Tavdy, a stock lending trader, both face the prospect of several months in clink. Both men will be sentenced in June.

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