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Citigroup Retools Mortgage Operations

TSC Staff

Citigroup (C - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) plans to reduce its U.S. residential mortgage assets by roughly $45 billion over the next 12 months, a 20% decrease from the end of 2007, and will cut the amount of new loans to be held in the portfolio by more than half in the next year.

In addition, Citi will combine all of its residential mortgage operations under the CitiMortgage name, including CitiMortgage, Citi Home Equity and Citi Residential Lending.

Citi will also integrate its middle office and support areas to serve first- and second-mortgage operations, organize its sales around customer segments and strengthen its ties with Citi Markets & Banking, which will be the primary provider of capital markets services to the U.S. mortgage business. The changes should reduce annual expenses by about $200 million.

Bill Beckmann, president of CitiMortgage, said in a press release that the realignment "will create a simplified and streamlined organization that is more sharply focused on clients and able to direct resources to the business lines and customer segments with the highest growth potential. At the same time, these changes will enable us to manage the business unit's capital for enhanced returns."

Shares of Citi fell 98 cents, or 4.4%, to $21.17 in regular trading Thursday, reaching a 52-week low. After hours, the stock was down another 2 cents.