Citi Reports Fourth Consecutive Loss, Wealth Management Stops Bleeding
Citigroup reported a $2.8 billion loss for the third quarter—it’s forth in a row— as the firm announced more than $13.2 billion in charges related largely to its mortgage portfolio. That brings the write-down/loss tally for Citigroup to more than $70 billion.
The loss, which translates to -$0.60 per share, was worse than consensus analyst expectations of -$0.40 per share, and contrasts sharply with the firm’s $2.2 billion profit in the year-ago quarter. Citigroup stock was trading at $15.54 (NYSE: C) in afternoon trading.
CEO Vikram Pandit had this to say about the result: “While our third quarter results reflect both a difficult environment as well as continued write-downs on our legacy assets, we are making excellent progress on the parts of our business we control, including expense reduction, headcount, and balance sheet and capital management.” View the release here.
Global wealth management brought in $3 billion in net new client assets in the third quarter. And while it was 63 percent less than the $8 billion that came in at the same time last year, it reversed an ugly negative asset flow trend that had seen a total of $12 billion in net client asset losses in the first two quarters of this year.
Total revenue in GWM was $2.5 billion, down 11 percent from $2.9 billion in the year-ago quarter. Net income was $363 million, a 28 percent decline from the year ago quarter. The unit’s pre-tax profit margin was 19 percent in the quarter, down from 24 percent at the same time last year. The number of financial advisors is 14,735, a 5 percent decline from 15,458 in the third quarter of 2007, and the sixth straight quarter that the number of FAs has decreased.
