Citi's new banking chief hailed for experience

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) - In decades spent working at some of America's best-known financial institutions, Eugene McQuade developed a reputation as a "Mr. Fix-It," investment managers, industry analysts and a former boss said on Thursday.

And that may be exactly what Citigroup (C.N) now needs from McQuade, 60, who has held top-level executive jobs at Merrill Lynch, Freddie Mac, FleetBoston Financial and Bank of America.

McQuade was installed on Thursday as Citi's new banking chief in a major management shake-up that included replacement of the company's chief financial officer.

The native New Yorker, who joined a bank training program right out of college, came of age professionally during the real estate crisis of the early 1990s, said Terrence Murray a former chief executive officer at FleetBoston.

When lenders across the country suffered through the recession and commercial real estate prices were hit especially hard in New England, McQuade quickly developed a talent for isolating problem assets, people who know him said.

At Fleet, McQuade was part of a team that determined what should be sold and at what price, said Murray, who lured McQuade to Boston from New York about two decades ago.

"People shine at different times, and Gene shines in a crisis," Murray said in a telephone interview.

McQuade will be working in New York now, but he casts a large shadow in New England and is remembered well by many in the Boston's close-knit investment management community.