Citigroup CEO visits new building

The leader of one of the world’s largest financial institutions joined South Dakota officials Thursday to celebrate a $72 million reinvestment in the state.

That’s the price tag on Citigroup’s new Sioux Falls office building, now finished and in the process of being filled up with staff from the bank’s old offices on the north end of town.

Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat discussed his company’s now decades-long relationship with South Dakota and its biggest city, signaling a new commitment to the area Citibank first looked to in 1981 when the bank’s leaders decided to move credit card operations here.

“We’re here to celebrate a building that symbolizes the brightness of our future here,” Corbat said.

South Dakota, Sioux Falls and Citibank officials cut a ribbon and release 200 monarch butterflies to signify the opening of the new Citibank South Dakota site on Sept. 5 at the Edges office development in Sioux Falls. The butterflies were inspired by a Native American legend that said a wish would come true if spoken to a butterfly before being released. 
PHOTOS: ERIN BORMETT / ARGUS LEADER

Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat speaks at the opening of a new South Dakota office building.

The new building is a reinvestment in SiouxFalls, but it also speaks to the transformation of Citigroup’s local operations, which today require hundreds of fewer workers than in 2008, when the global financial institution’s employed more than 3,000 local residents.

Standing four-stories tall, with nearly 150,000 square feet in space, the new Citibank office is big enough to alter the landscape in a growing pocket of southwestern Sioux Falls. But it is far smaller than Citibank’s old Sioux Falls offices, and the difference in square footage comes hand-inhand with very real changes in staffing and the company’s local operations. The new facility will provide enough office space for about 1,300 workers, with roughly 300 more working from home.

Much like the rest of the organization, Citi’s Sioux Falls offices have not been exempt from the trimming of the bank’s workforce and what Corbat described as a re-focus “back to our core.” “In a way, Sioux Falls is a microcosm of the company,” Corbat said. “The bank today is much smaller than pre-finan- cial crisis.”

Technology has changed workforce needs in banking, health care and other industries that provide thousands of jobs to residents of the Sioux Falls area, said Denise Guzzetta, vice president of talent and workforce development for the Sioux Falls Development Foundation.

“Tech continues to have these positive enhancements but it does require people to have to reinvest in their employees and employees have to reinvest in themselves,” Guzzetta said.

Located in a business park near the junction of Interstates 29 and 229, the unveiling of the Citi building this week met with praise from local government leaders, who lauded the bank’s commitment to the area.

South Dakota’s entire congressional delegation attended and spoke at the ceremonies, which included a flag raising and a release of 200 monarch butterflies.

Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken credited the financial institution for helping spark development interest in southwestern Sioux Falls, which is set to add a new hospital, a new I-29 interchange and plenty of commercial growth in the future.

“Your investment here has spurred continued city investment,” TenHaken said.

Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden called Citigroup’s arrival in the state nearly four decades ago a “catalyst” for economic development.

“We are certainly an ag state, but it turns out we’re pretty good at banking as well,” Rhoden said.

Citigroup started with its credit card center in 1981, but its Sioux Falls operations now include a variety of departments and services.

The new building follows similar design principles used in other Citigroup facilities, and was built to provide an open, collaborative work space, Corbat said.

“I want our employees to have as many constructive collisions as possible,” he said.

Major financial institutions with offices in Sioux Falls have continued to shrink their workforce and shutter local call center operations. At least four have trimmed their workforce or closed-up shop entirely: Capital One, TCF, Wells Fargo and Citibank.

The Sioux Falls metro area has lost more than 1,000 financial industry jobs since the economic downturn. Some of the job loss has come with criticism – from ex-employees and South Dakota officials – of companies outsourcing those positions overseas.

Capital One’s decision to close its Sioux Falls operations, a move that affected 751 workers, prompted South Dakota government officials to seek aid from the federal government. A state labor official blamed “outsourcing to the Philippines,” according to the petition South Dakota filed with the federal government’s labor department.

The state’s petition for aid was approved. The federal government also approved a similar plea for aid from a small group of former TCF workers in Sioux Falls, sent in before TCF executives made the decision last year to close the company’s Sioux Falls offices. Citibank, meanwhile, has decided to reinvest in local real estate and maintain a workforce.

The decision by Citibank executives to build a Sioux Falls office in the early 1980s helped reshape the economy of the city and establish it as a hub for major financial firms.

Corbat credited the people in Sioux Falls for Citibank’s decision to stay.

“We like the skilled and talented workforce we attract here,” Corbat said.

Patrick Anderson Sioux Falls Argus Leader USA TODAY NETWORK