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Citi Shedding $400 Billion in Assets

Dan Freed

CitigroupC plans to shed $400 billion in additional businesses over the next three years, as CEO Vikram Pandit continues his shakeup of the troubled bank.

At Citi's Investor/Analyst Day in New York Friday, Pandit, on stage with a group of the bank's top managers announced no plans to break up the behemoth bank, as some have called for. He said, however, the bank will focus on paring non-core "legacy assets" -- including real estate, leveraged loans and subprime collateralized debt obligations -- to lower costs and boost flagging profits.

"We have made a decision about the assets we want to keep," Pandit told the group of analysts, institutional investors and media in attendance.

The executives expressed confidence that they will be able to carry off the sales.

Citi already has begun shedding assets. Earlier this month, the bank and partner State StreetSTT sold employee benefits joint venture CitiStreet to INGING for $900 million.

Pandit has suggested since he assumed the bank's top post in December that he would look at asset sales and he has followed through in recent weeks with a management reshuffle to refocus the bank's leaders on its core business.

In identifying areas for growth, Pandit and the other top executives in attendance stressed Citigroup's strength in emerging markets countries. "We have an emerging markets platform others dream about," said John Havens, CEO of Citigroup's institutional clients group.

As he fielded some tough questions from the investors and analysts on hand, Pandit tried to add moments levity to the proceedings. When Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck made a reference to "excess capital," Pandit quipped, "Betsy, let me just start by saying its nice to hear for a change that there are people who think we have excess capital."

It all comes as the bank has been one of the hardest-hit Wall Street institutions during the credit crunch that has gripped markets since last summer. Citi in April reported a $5.1 billion first-quarter loss and $12 billion in writedowns of securities tied to shaky debt.

The bank also has raised more than $40 billion through sales of common and preferred stock and slashed its dividend to preserve capital. Washington MutualWM, Wachovia BankWB and National CityNCC have also raised capital after posting first-quarter losses.

Rivals WachoviaWB, Merrill LynchMER and UBSUBS have also reported huge losses and writedowns in the quarter.

Shares of Citigroup closed down 2.3% $23.74.