Taxpayers still own 7.7 billion Citigroup shares since the government bailed out the bank as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. So as a valued shareholder, you might be interested to know that Citigroup lost $7.77 billion in the fourth-quarter, or 33 cents per share. Citigroup says $6.2 billion of the loss was tied to a $20 billion fourth-quarter repayment on some $45 billion in government bailout money. (The bank also shed 100,000 jobs during the year.) "The environment continues to be challenging," said Chief financial officer John Gerspach in a statement worthy of the Understatement Hall of Fame.
Citi's big losses stand in stark contrast to JPMorgan Chase, which announced last week that profit more than quadrupled from a year earlier, to $3.28 billion, thanks in part to an improvement in investment- banking fees. Citi's move to repay the TARP money was in part motivated by a need to shake free from executive-pay restrictions. But chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit is very much "on the hot seat," as one analyst puts it; when he was named CEO in December 2007, Citi's share price was $34.77. This morning, at 9:43 a.m., it dropped to $3.33 on the New York Stock Exchange, Bloomberg reports; now it's around $3.50. Don't spend it all in one place!
