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Citigroup Arithmetic Explained
Since I’ve been writing about preferred and common stock so much this week, I thought I would just try to explain the arithmetic of the Citigroup deal announced today. (By the way, it isn’t a done...
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New Day, New Bank, Worse Story
It’s a beautiful day today, and after Goldman and JPMorgan, I don’t feel like diving deep into Citigroup’s earnings release. But judging from the Bloomberg article, it’s a similar story, just not as...
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It Takes A Citi
Washington-based policy tinkerers seem increasingly drawn to the idea that greater reliance on market information can forestall future problems – e.g., providing input into an early warning system...
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Richard Parsons’s Portfolio
According to Bloomberg, Richard Parsons – the chair of Citigroup since February – now owns stock in the company worth, at yesterday’s close, about $350,000 (96,298 shares at $3.69). For such a...
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Where Else Are You Going to Go?
Yves Smith returned from book-writing land to catch up on the Andrew Hall story, which is one that I pretty much decided to ignore from the beginning. Hall is the Citigroup trader who, according to his...
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CEO Statements That Should Make You Worry
“Our distinctiveness is we connect the world better than anyone else. We have a great capability of building a business around that. And we are in the process of building a culture around that.” That’s...
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What’s Up with Citigroup?
On Monday, Citigroup received permission from its regulators to buy back the remaining $20 billion in preferred shares held by Treasury because of its investments under TARP. (Treasury invested $25...
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The Citi Never Weeps
On the first day of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Phil Angelides demonstrated a gift for powerful and memorable metaphor: accusing Goldman Sachs of essentially selling defective cars and...
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Design or Incompetence?
Or both? In late summer or early fall, Citibank was running a promotion: if you opened a new account or moved a certain amount of money to your bank account, you would get a $200 bonus within three...
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Questions For Mr. Pandit
By Simon Johnson Today, perhaps following our earlier recommendation, Mr. Vikram Pandit – CEO of Citigroup – will appear before the congressional oversight panel for TARP. (Official website, with...
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Is Vikram Pandit in Favor of Real Reform?
Testifying today before the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit took pains to strike the right notes. Near the beginning of his prepared testimony, he said, “First, however,...
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More Bank Marketing
By James Kwak I’ve already criticized Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit’s testimony before the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel on Thursday, but there’s one thing I left out. Citigroup, like other banks...
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Vikram Pandit Has No Clothes
By Simon Johnson Vikram Pandit heads Citigroup, one of the world’s largest and most powerful banks. Writing in the Financial Times Thursday morning, with regard to the higher capital standards...
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Why Not Break-Up Citigroup?
By Simon Johnson Earlier this week, Richard Fisher – President of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank – captured the growing political mood with regard to very large banks: “I believe that too-big-to-fail...
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What Good Is the SEC?
By James Kwak This week’s Atlantic column is my somewhat belated response to Judge Jed Rakoff’s latest SEC takedown, this time rejecting a proposed settlement with Citigroup over a CDO-squared that the...
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Remember Citigroup
By Simon Johnson On Thursday of last week, four senators unveiled the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. The pushback from people representing the megabanks was immediate but also completely lame – the...
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“All You Need for a Financial Crisis . . .
By James Kwak . . . are excess optimism and Citibank.” That’s a saying that someone, probably Simon, repeated to me a few years ago. Crash of 1929, Latin American debt crisis, early 1990s real estate...
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Résumé Put Hall of Fame
By James Kwak Before 2006, people used to talk about the Greenspan put: the idea that, should the going get rough in the markets, Chairman Al would bail everybody out. But there’s something even better...
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Citigroup CEO Named To “Key Administration Post”
By Simon Johnson Just a few short days ago, it looked like Citigroup was on the ropes. The company’s proposal for redistributing capital back to shareholders was rejected by the Board of Governors of...
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Citigroup Will Be Broken Up
By Simon Johnson Citigroup is a very large bank that has amassed a huge amount of political power. Its current and former executives consistently push laws and regulations in the direction of allowing...
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