Vikram Pandit, chief executive of US banking giant Citi, is expected to attempt to rally his troops today with a speech to employees aimed at restoring internal morale and allaying investors’ fears over the company’s strategy and share price, according to the Financial Times.

The announcement that he will hold a “town hall” meeting for the financial services group’s 350,000 staff follows a week marked by talk of a boardroom revolt, job cuts and rising doubts over Mr Pandit’s ability to turn round the company, the FT said.

The concerns have been heightened by the underperformance of Citi’s shares, which ended last week below the psychologically important level of $10. At Friday’s close of $9.52, Citi’s market valuation was less than $51 billion, some three-quarters lower than when Mr Pandit took over in December last year.

But in a memo to staff announcing the meeting, Mr Pandit said Citi had “plentiful capital, abundant liquidity and our revenue is strong”. The document, which was obtained by the Financial Times, said Mr Pandit would talk about the “accomplishments over the past 11 months”.

In the memo signed “Vikram” and sent from Mr Pandit’s e-mail address, he urged staff to “work smarter and more efficiently”, a thinly veiled warning to continue to cut costs because times remain tough.

Citi’s board also sent an e-mail to employees on Friday, expressing confidence in the top management and denying a report that some directors wanted to replace Sir Win Bischoff, chairman, with Richard Parsons, the Time Warner chairman.

The board’s memo, signed by Mr Parsons, who is Citi’s lead director, called the report “irresponsible and completely inaccurate”. It added that the management team was leading the company in “the winning direction for these extraordinary times”.

People close to the situation said the concerted action by the board and Mr Pandit reflected fears that the recent stream of bad news would undermine both morale and the share price.

Citi is in the midst of a 23,000 redundancy programme, with at least 10,000 job losses expected to be announced in the next few weeks.

Mr Pandit has come under increasing fire internally for failing to revive the company’s fortunes and reverse the share price slump. Citi’s failure to buy Wachovia, which was acquired by Wells Fargo after a bitter battle last month, provided further ammunition to his critics.

Mr Pandit has a reputation for being cerebral but during the fight for Wachovia he surprised observers by giving a passionate account of the company’s side of the story.