Corporate philanthropy exposed
More on corporate philanthropy at shareholder cost as seen in the Jack Grubman-Sandy Weill Citicorp affair according to this New York Times story (registration required):
Gifts the size of Citigroup's to any institution typically involve a series of negotiations between the recipient and the donor, but neither Citigroup nor the Y will say who initiated the gift or when.
A spokeswoman for Citigroup said that the company regarded all of its philanthropy, which amounted to almost $69 million last year, as a whole, and that whether the money came from its foundation or the company itself depended on the terms of each gift.
"This is yet another example of why we need a significant investment in corporate oversight," said Rick Cohen, president of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group that is doing research on how corporations use philanthropy. "Who is going to call Citigroup on the carpet about this? Who is going to check to make sure it reflects its responsibility to Citigroup's shareholders? Nobody, that's who, and that's why they can get away with it."