Citigroup Inc suffered its fourth straight quarterly loss because of credit-related missteps and cut another 11,000 jobs.
The New York-based bank said yesterday it lost $2.8 billion, or US$0.60 per share, in the third quarter, compared with a profit of US$2.2 billion, or US$0.44 per share, a year ago.
That deficit for the period from June-to-September brings Citi’s total losses over the past 12 months to US$20.2 billion.
The shortfall for the quarter was narrower than anticipated.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of US$0.70 per share.
But the results were hardly reassuring. Citi wrote down US$4.4 billion in investments, recorded US$4.9 billion in credit losses, and took a US$3.9 billion charge to boost reserves.
The bank has written down the value of its investments in souring mortgages and other debt by more than US$50 billion since this time last year.
“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,” CEO Vikram Pandit said in a statement.
“We expect these improvements will enable us to realize the full earnings power of our franchise as the economy stabilizes,” he said.
The frailty of the financial system has led the government to pledge US$25 billion to each of the big four US banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co. Of these four institutions, Citi appears to be on the shakiest footing.
It is the only one to have posted quarterly losses over the past year, and it is shrinking while its peers are growing.
Citi not only eliminated 11,000 jobs during the third quarter — bringing its total headcount reduction so far this year to 23,000 — but it also shed US$50 billion in assets.
Pandit announced in May that Citi intends to rid itself of as much as US$500 billion in assets to get out of businesses such as risky mortgages. The bank said that over the past year, it has lopped off US$308 billion in total assets.
Meanwhile, the bank has not made any major acquisitions. While JPMorgan Chase snapped up Bear Stearns Cos and Washington Mutual Inc, and Bank of America Corp bought Merrill Lynch, Citigroup lost a bid for Wachovia Corp and its massive deposit base to Wells Fargo.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”