• 24 Jul 2008 at 9:36 AM

Citi To Stay Inefficiently, Unprofitably Huge

By Bess Levin

For those of you losing sleep over the thought of shrinkage at the house of Citi, DO NOT FEAR: despite calls by persons with a clue, the great big behemoth wants you to know that’s never going to happen. On a conference call yesterday, chief financial officer Gary Crittenden told analysts– worried that this last quarter’s results were a sign of great things to come– that the bank doesn’t have “any intention to break up,” and, in fact, is meeting with contractors next week to discuss adding on a master bedroom (including his and her sinks, natch) and deck.
Citigroup doubles cash to cope with markets [IHT via DealBook]

Comments (9)

  1. 1
    Posted by guest | July 24, 2008 at 9:43 AM

    Break Up? I heard they were going to expand to encompass consumer retail, logging, and an airline.

  2. 2
    Posted by guest | July 24, 2008 at 9:54 AM

    Ahh yes Citi Airlines – where the pilots never sleep

  3. 3
    Posted by guest | July 24, 2008 at 9:54 AM

    Bess & Carney – are you guys just totalling writing off the write-offs section from yesterday?

  4. 4
    Posted by guest | July 24, 2008 at 9:55 AM

    Bess & Carney – are you guys just totally writing off the write-offs section from yesterday?

  5. 5
    Posted by guest | July 24, 2008 at 10:02 AM

    That’s not shrinkage at Citi – it’s just really cold over there.

  6. 6
    Posted by John Carney | July 24, 2008 at 10:11 AM

    @3 (and 4):
    Technical issues slowed us down yesterday. We’re back now. Apologies for the slow afternoon.

  7. 7
    Posted by Anal_yst | July 24, 2008 at 10:24 AM

    nominating #2 for comment of the day
    (with wall street getting drunk, you have NO IDEA how hard that was!)

  8. 8
    Posted by guest | July 24, 2008 at 11:29 AM

    Is Erin BUrnett’s boyfriend still working there? Otherwise, no money no honey.

  9. 9
    Posted by guest | July 24, 2008 at 1:03 PM

    Michael Mayo gets credit for his foretell in October
    on C. But his following the panic-stricken herd lately
    and raising his target to $20 only after it recovered
    to $20, is weak.
    Let’s now recap other sky-is-falling geniuses;
    July 9 (Reuters) -
    “The financials are not recovering. Some of the regional banks are
    showing signs of weakness and starting to crack a little bit,” said
    Seth Plunkett, a portfolio manager for fixed income with American
    Century Investments
    July 2, 2008
    Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Meredith Whitney lowered her estimates on
    Citigroup Wednesday, due in part to exposures to troubled bond
    insurance companies.
    Whitney, lowered her second-quarter estimate to a loss of $1.25 per
    share from a gain of 21 cents per share and predicted a writedown of
    $12.2 billion.
    Wrong, and wrong.
    (In April, Whitney downgraded Wells Fargo also)
    Real estate is going to hit a bottom, and real sub-prime
    defaults will end out around 20% – not close to these
    crazy 50-80% writedowns. Then people will wake up
    and realize why C was a global cash-cow that earns
    $5 B per quarter on normal operations.
    Remember, before it had to register these non-core
    devaluations, C had a P/E around 10 at $48 / share.
    These fools act like one of the world’s largest banks
    is disappearing soon.
    -

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