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CHART OF THE DAY: The Spanish Housing Chart That's Going To Crush The Banking System Joe Weisenthal March 28, 2012, 6:11 AM Citi's Willem Buiter is out with a big call on Spain, and how things are going to get much worse, and how ultimately the country will need outside assistance in some way. Given that Spain is much bigger than Greece, this is a very big deal. We have the full gory details of the report here. One key element of his call relates to real estate, and his belief that the collapse in that market is not done....

Obama's New Chief Of Staff Made Some Amazing Hedge Fund Investments At Citi Lisa Du Jan. 10, 2012, 3:50 PM Ever since it was announced that Jack Lew, current head of the Office of Management and Budget, would be President Barack Obama's new Chief of Staff to replace the departing William Daley, the media sphere has been abuzz with Lew's stellar political resume—having worked for several Congressmen and under both Bill and Hillary Clinton—and the fact that he is described as a "mild-mannered and steady technocrat," enjoying bi-partisan support. But the incoming chief has another facet to his work history—he's...

MUST-READ: Citi's Willem Buiter Says Europe Could Just Have Weeks Or Days Before A Financial Catastrophe Joe Weisenthal Nov. 16, 2011, 3:17 PM This is a fantastic interview with Citi's Willem Buiter on Bloomberg TV. You can hear the anger in his voice as he argues that Europe may have a matter of days before an unnecessary default and a financial catastrophe. The answer: the ECB must act fast, and ignore the Germans who don't get it. While some people don't think that the ECB can really monetize sovereign debt this way, Buiter believes there's absolutely nothing preventing the ECB...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The fees keep coming. Citi is the latest big bank to slap customers with a round of fee hikes. This time, on its checking accounts. Starting in December, customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000. At the same time, customers who have the bank's EZ Checking account will start being charged $15 a month if they don't carry a minimum balance of $6,000. Citi says...

Would you buy a bond guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States if its existence also breached U.S. law? This seemingly crazy concept might sound ridiculous, but bizarre times may call for bizarre measures. As a result, this week, Citi analyst Brett Rose (via Business Insider) suggested that the Treasury could resort to an unlikely worst-case scenario: it could just issue more Treasury securities in violation of the law. Could This Really Happen?

Citigroup saw several red flags in the dealings of Bernard Madoff's firm years before his multibillion-dollar fraud was exposed in late 2008, the firm's liquidator said in a newly unsealed lawsuit. Irving Picard, a court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money for former Madoff clients, made the accusations in one of several complaints he has filed against big banks he says "enabled" the massive, decades-long Ponzi scheme by turning a blind eye to it. "Citi had access to and received information placing it on inquiry notice that Madoff's advisory business was potentially a fraud, and/or that Madoff was making hundreds of...

Obama's OMB Pick Lew Headed Citi Unit That Shorted HousingJul 15 2010, 3:40 PM ET Imagine if President Obama's new OMB head had worked at one of the biggest Wall Street bailout recipients and headed a group that profited by shorting the housing market. That would be a public relations nightmare, but it also appears to be the reality the administration faces with the Jacob Lew nomination. His Citigroup unit had a big investment in the hedge fund run by John Paulson, also at the center of the SEC's Goldman Sachs lawsuit. The hedge fund made billions of dollars by...

Extract: Debrahlee Lorenzana is filing a lawsuit against Citibank because they fired her, she says, for the strangest reason: she's too hot. ....Her bosses told her that "as a result of the shape of her figure, such clothes were purportedly 'too distracting' for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear," she says

Wall Street Read of the Week: "Bob Rubin Just Wants to Be Cuddled" By Max Abelson April 30, 2010 | 6:36 p.m Until today, the London Business School-educated Iris Mack was known as a Harvard Management Company whistle-blower. From now on she will be remembered for these extraordinary words about her affair with former Treasury Secretary and Citi executive Bob Rubin: "He got this funny look on his face, and asked: 'Do you want to go upstairs and...cuddle?' So that's what this is about... And not long afterward the former Treasury Secretary had his tongue down my throat and hands...

Former Citi Chair Bob Rubin (ex-Goldman Sachs banker and Clinton Treasury Secy) was criticized by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission for not accepting blame for Citi's ill-advised drive into CDOs (collaterized mortgage-backed securities that got a $45B TARP bailout). "You were not a garden-variety board member," he was told. Rubin got a $115M paycheck sitting on Citi's board 1999-2009; Rubin is frustrated with the view that he should have been more involved in Citi's operations during the crisis.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Rubin, the former financial superstar once lionized for his global crisis-fighting prowess, was scolded Thursday over the mortgage-securities disaster at Citigroup Inc. when he was a top executive there. His claim he didn't know of the risks piling up drew a sharp retort. "You can't have it both ways: You either were pulling the levers or asleep at the switch," the head of the panel investigating the roots of the financial crisis told Rubin at a hearing. Rubin expressed regret. Yet he insisted he didn't know until late in the game, when the subprime mortgage crisis...

Obama administration is preparing to sell its stake in the bank, sources say. Among the banks that rule Wall Street, Citigroup got a bailout that was bigger than the rest. Now the company is about to pay a king's ransom for its federal rescue. The Obama administration is making final preparations to sell its stake in the New York bank, according to industry and federal sources. At today's prices, the sale would net more than $8 billion, by far the largest profit returned from any firm that accepted bailout funds and the transaction would be the second-largest stock sale in...

As the Republican presidential candidate in the fall of 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain had more power than anyone to upend the Wall Street rescue package. But McCain now feels duped by former Republican Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. “We were all misled,” McCain said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” speaking of Paulson. “What did he do? He started pumping money into the financial institutions. Now the financial institutions are fine — Wall Street’s doing great. Main Street is in deep trouble.” Paulson and other former Bush administration officials told Congress at the time that the $700 billion lawmakers approved...

Citigroup Warns Customers It May Refuse To Allow Withdrawals John Carney Feb. 19, 2010, 2:57 PM The image of banks locking their doors to keep customers from making withdrawals during a bank run is what immediately came to mind when we heard that Citigroup was telling customers it has the right to prevent any withdrawals from checking accounts for seven days. "Effective April 1, 2010, we reserve the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. While we do not currently exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past, we...

Questions of the day: Would you buy a round-trip ticket on an airplane prone to crashes? How about a car with a history of serious brake problems? Interested in a TV that works great, except for the picture? If you answered yes to any of those, do I have an investment opportunity for you

Citi plans crisis derivatives Author: Laurie Carver Source: Risk magazine | 08 Feb 2010 Categories: Derivatives Topics: Citi, hedging, liquidity crisis bankrupt Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs. Like the untraded US rates liquidity index (USRLI), the CLX is constructed as a sum of the Sharpe ratio – deviations from the mean divided by...

Citigroup Inc. became the latest bank to take a cautious view of consumers' credit problems, reporting a $7.77 fourth-quarter loss due to failed loans and the costs of repaying government bailout money. The bank said Tuesday it did see some early signs of improvement in its credit business although it still needed to set aside $8.18 billion to cover unpaid loans. That amount was down 10 percent from the third quarter, and 36 percent from a year earlier. John Gerspach, Citigroup's chief financial officer, reported one of those improving signs during a conference call with the media, noting that the...

<p>The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing a computer-security breach targeting Citigroup Inc. (C 3.35, -0.07, -2.05%) that resulted in a theft of tens of millions of dollars by computer hackers, according to a Wall Street Journal report dated Tuesday.</p>

When contacted by the Washington Post to explain the special $38 billion tax deal the government is giving Citigroup, officials at the Department of the Treasury offered this explanation: Treasury officials said the government needed to grant the tax break in order to sell its shares in Citigroup because the company could not afford the loss. Officials also said that preserving the tax break would help the government sell its shares at a higher price. If any other shareholder engaged in this kind of behavior, he'd probably be indicted. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is rightly planning hearings on this debacle...

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U.S. taxpayers could ultimately see a profit of $13 billion to $14 billion from Citigroup's payback of bailout investments, including dividends paid, a U.S. Treasury official said on Monday. That amount includes the gain on the government's 34 percent stake in Citi common shares , which was close to $5.8 billion as of Friday's close, as well as trust preferred securities with a $5.2 billion face value, received in a loss-sharing agreement backing a pool of Citigroup assets. The official also said the total also includes estimates of nearly $3 billion in dividends paid on the government's investments in the...

No law, including the Credit CARD Act that has started to take effect, prevents banks from closing down credit accounts without warning. Credit card issuers all maintain the right...

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government's "pay czar" played a critical role in Citigroup's(C.N) decision to sell off its lucrative commodities trading business, Phibro, a source familiar with the matter said Friday. The sale of the unit to Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY.N) relieves beleaguered Citigroup of a massive political headache-- what to do with Phibro trader Andrew Hall and his paycheck of up to $100 million. Hall has become the poster child of Wall Street's top earners; and while pay czar Kenneth Feinberg would have limited power over his pay this year, he would undoubtedly have dramatically restructured Hall's...

Citi sues Morgan Stanley over CDS, claims $245 mln Sat Sep 26, 2009 3:35am BST NEW YORK, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) sued Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Friday for breach of contract, saying the Wall Street firm owed it $245.4 million for protection it bought on a loan. Citibank bought a credit default swap (CDS) from Morgan Stanley & Co International in 2006 on a $366 million revolving credit facility it provided to an issuer of collateralized debt obligations (CDO), according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The...

Regulators today won't define 'systemic risk,' unlike 25 years ago. With Congress back in session and the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers failure upon us, the Obama Administration is resuming its quest for greatly expanded authority to bail out American businesses. Under the Treasury reform blueprint, any financial company, whether a regulated bank or not, could be rescued or seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation if regulators believe it poses a systemic risk. If recent history is any guide, when the feds stage their next intervention, they will not define "systemic risk" and they will refuse to release the...

The head of the committee overseeing how Uncle Sam is spending its bailout dollars offered withering criticism of the feds' handling of Citigroup's rescue, blasting regulators for their lack of transparency -- and the absence of any clear exit strategy. Noting that other companies that have received federal aid have served up proposals to pay back the money, Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, had harsh words about the lack of such a plan in the case of Citi, which has received $45 billion in rescue cash and is more than one-third owned by US taxpayers. "Too big...

A wealthy investment banker and prominent fundraiser for President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats was arrested Tuesday on charges he lied to get a $74 million business loan that -- once confronted by authorities -- he hastily repaid. Prosecutors accused Hassan Nemazee of giving Citibank documents showing he owned millions of dollars in collateral. They said the documents were "fraudulent and forged." A Clinton spokesman didn't immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment. The chairman and chief executive of Manhattan-based Nemazee Capital Corp. served as national finance chairman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2008, and later...

Alexander Lewis, who has been at Citigroup since 1999 and before that worked at the Federal Reserve, will head to the Treasury "to work on domestic financial issues," said the Citigroup memo, which was sent Tuesday. -WSJ I suppose it is a step up for his career, but I am not so certain it is a step up for America. Citigroup’s chief economist Lewis Alexander just got a new dream job at the Treasury Department. And wow, he also once worked for the Federal Reserve – impressive! He is a professional con-man. Again, the administration is blatantly recycling old crooks...

While much of Wall Street and the rest of the financial sector are finally seeing some sun, the storm clouds around Citigroup just don't seem to break. Last Friday, the company said it earned $3.4 billion in its second quarter. It was the second quarter in a row that Citi had announced a profit, after many critics said the company was done for. In a press release, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit triumphantly said, "Our financial results today reflect the incredibly dedicated efforts of all of our people around the world and their success in implementing our plan." But in the...

This is what Citibank SHOULD say to us. Not what they will say. It is very revealing: snip "First off, you just swapped your preferred shares for common stock. Right now it looks as if the exchange offer will wipe about 11 percent off the $25 billion the government invested for you in the preferreds that are being swapped, out of a total of $45 billion invested in Citi since the credit crisis began. And you’re losing the 5 percent dividend you were getting on that money. Common shares may be riskier investments than preferred stock. But hey, what’s life...

One hundred ninety-seven years, one month and 14 days after its founding, Citigroup Inc has given a roughly 34 percent stake to U.S. taxpayers. While a few technical details still remain, the bank has completed a months-long effort to convert preferred shares held by the U.S. government into common stock. Citigroup on Thursday completed two exchange offers to bolster the capital position of the nation's third-biggest bank, widely considered the most troubled large U.S. lender. Public investors, private investors and the government swapped close to $58 billion of preferred securities into common stock of the New York-based bank. Citigroup has...

Borrowers should accept a new world of tighter, more expensive credit as financial institutions recover from months of bad loans, failed banks and foreclosed homes, Citigroup Inc.'s chief executive said Monday. During the past few years, "U.S. consumption and credit creation were the two main drivers of growth," Vikram Pandit told a conference of business, economic and government leaders in downtown Detroit. "The world needs new drivers of growth — and a new business model." Pandit's speech closed the first day of the three-day National Summit, which is expected to draw about 3,000 attendees to Detroit over three days. The...

Ugh. Why does Timmy insist on making thing worse? Read » Earlier today we mentioned that the government should be considering seizing Citigroup and breaking it up. Unfortunately, it seems that the Obama administration is going in the opposite direction: protecting Citi's chief executive from FDIC bosslady Sheila Bair, who has been agitating for changes to Citi's top management. It looks like Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has become Pandit's best friend in Washington. Bill McConnell of the Deal explains: The $58 billion stock swap was reportedly held up as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman pressed to have Pandit replaced...

No wonder Pandit's job is safe The New York Fed cannot effectively regulate Citi because it has been captured by the mega-bank, according to a top economic official inside the Obama administration. The close relationship between Citi executives and officials at the New York Fed is stymieing efforts to reform the bank and change its management, according to the official. The official asked not to be identified. Citi executives have told Charlie Gasparino that they are in a "regulatory purgatory," unsure about what the government's plans for them have been. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sheila Bair's FDIC...

General Motors and Citigroup were kicked out of the closely watched Dow Jones industrial average on Monday, marking a historic fall from grace for two once venerable American corporations. In a widely anticipated move, Dow Jones & Co said technology bellwether Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O) will replace GM, which filed for bankruptcy on Monday morning. Travelers Co (TRV.N), a large home, auto and commercial insurer, will take the place of Citigroup due to the bank's restructuring and the government's "large and ongoing stake." The changes marked the latest fallout on the financial landscape from the collapse of the U.S. housing...

It's no secret that Citigroup board Chairman Richard Parsons has been working for months to repair the financial giant. But, until now, even his closest associates didn't know he also was wrestling with a personal crisis - how to tell his wife and three children he has fathered a child with another woman. Parsons and model-philanthropist MacDella Cooper are the parents of a baby girl named Ella.

MAY 2, 2009 Citi Said to Need Up to $10 Billion By DAVID ENRICH and DAMIAN PALETTA WASHINGTON -- Citigroup Inc. may need to raise as much as $10 billion in new capital, according to people familiar with the matter, as the government continues negotiations with banks over the results of its so-called stress tests. The bank, like many others, is negotiating with the Federal Reserve and may need less if regulators accept the bank's arguments about its financial health, these people said. In a best-case scenario, Citigroup could wind up having a roughly $500 million cushion above what the...

Stress test results spell big-time dilution for Citi shareholders. And that's if they can even raise the money. Read »

Not enough to pass stress test, but $2.5 billion less that taxpayers will have to come up with. Read »

Three cheers for the Black Hole (which taxpayers now own)

It's the usual story: We pay our best people or they walk. The joys of de facto nationalization.

Citigroup posted a smaller-than-expected loss thanks to cost-cutting and improved investment banking. Still there were missing details and the report left questions open like when will Citi be ready to repay its bailout funds to the government and are its taxpayer supported profits from this quarter sustainable? (See "Citi Profits, For Now.") Wall Street was unimpressed with Citigroup and the stock fell 1.5%, or 6 cents, to $3.94, in midday trading. The past 12 months have been unkind to the New York-based firm, whose seen its market value sink no less than 84.3%. Meanwhile, General Electric ( GE - news...

Excerpt: So when all the talk started about giving back bonuses, they would have laughed were it not so horrifying. That money was already spent! Were they supposed to go back to all the charities, or their landscaper, or the kids’ schools and ask for the money back? They wondered if anyone had stopped to think about all the people that their money touched, and how many other people were like them.

Citigroup Inc.'s chief economist is leaving the company for a job at the Treasury Department, according to an internal Citigroup memo. Lewis Alexander, who has been at Citigroup since 1999 and before that worked at the Federal Reserve, will head to the Treasury "to work on domestic financial issues," said the Citigroup memo, which was sent Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc Chairman Richard Parsons said on Thursday that the bank does not need any more capital injections from the government and expressed confidence that Citi would remain in private hands. Asked in an interview with Reuters whether Citigroup needed additional government capital injections, Parsons said: "No, I think actually, particularly with the latest conversion... Citi is actually one of the better capitalized banks in the world." Parsons was speaking on the sidelines of a Business Roundtable event where President Barack Obama addressed business executives. The Citigroup leader also brushed aside any prospect of the U.S. government...

Ok, Drudge has a story from Reuters which is on the New York Post about how Citi and GM face being de-listed, so can someone explain how a unsubstantiated story about a company posibly having made money the last quarter (before taxes and write-offs) , a company which stands a good chance of soon being de-list cause a stock market rally?

If management e-mails actually “communicated” anything they would be banned. Risks of a leak means workers are subjected to anodyne words on how valued they are or that their company is uniquely positioned to cope with the challenges ahead. On Tuesday, however, a short memo from chief executive Vikram Pandit to staff at Citigroup set the entire US banking sector alight. Having dropped below a dollar last week, Citi’s share price rallied 35 per cent. What did the memo say? Three nuggets in particular seemed to dazzle investors. First that Citi was profitable in January and February and the quarter...

The one day rally, thanks to some creative spin by Citibank appears to be over as the DOW begins to head back down again. After falling nearly 6,000 points since the democrats retook congress, the DJIA closed up yesterday 379 points (5.8%). It was the biggest percentage gain since Nov. 21 when the market soared 494 points on news that Barack Obama was naming Timothy Geithner the new Treasury Secretary. "Almost everyone believes that what we've seen is a dead-cat bounce," Kent Engelke, managing director at Capitol Securities Management told The Wall Street Journal. The uptick continued in early morning...

“Based on historical revenue and expense rates, Citi’s projected earnings before taxes and one-time charges would be about $8.3 billion for the full quarter.” (emphasis added) http://www.politicallore.com/economy/the-citi-that-never-sleeps-on-spin/606

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. policymakers must develop a way to handle the failure of a systemically important, financial conglomerate, possibly modeled after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp's procedure for smaller banks, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday. The FDIC has hinted it could take on that job, with Chairman Sheila Bair saying recently that the agency's model for failed banks works well. But she said the FDIC would need more authority and resources to resolve financial conglomerates. The FDIC insures about $4.5 trillion of deposits at more than 8,000 banks. It has the authority to take over an...