Citi’s CEO is saying the company is "well capitalized" and they are only raising capital because there is opportunity to do so. He says that in this environment having excess capital is a strength. The CFO says they intend to wind down assets in the mortgage portfolio and reduce exposure in banking and fixed income. Also, says they will increase exposure in other areas, including commodities (nothing like being late to the party). The next few quarters are unlikely to be in line with averages and they expect an increase in credit costs. He also says:
- Will be able to wind down assets from $500B to less than $100B in two or three years, but process may take longer.
- Over the next years will generate $40B extra capital.
The CEO says the company is ‘long the world, and heavily overweight emerging markets’. I’m not even going to pretend I understand this blather!
ED (ConEd) files two proposals to raise power rates in New York state . Lovely. First, maybe they should figure out how to keep the power on!
- first plan seeks $654M in added revenue, alternative proposal would increase revenue by $567M
The dollar continues to weaken and so do the indices. Should be an interesting afternoon.
2 Comments
May 9th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
My favorite CEO line: “There is STRONG interest in our issuing new shares.” Yeah, strong interest from existing shareholders to SELL!
May 9th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Bye the bye, let us not forget that Citi CEO Vikram Pandit sold his hedgefund to C before he became CEO of C. Uhh.. The fund went belly up last week. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Yeah, this guy cares about Citi shreholders. (Disclosure: no ax to grind. I wouldn’t soil my holdings with this dog)