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Posted on 11/22/2008 7:04:26 PM PST by rabscuttle385
Less than two months ago, Citigroup emerged from the wreckage of the financial crisis as one of the last titans left standing on Wall Street.
Now, in a stunning turnabout, the banking giant has sunk to its knees after a series of blows that have driven its stock price to a mere $3.77 on Friday — and left it running short on time and options.
In the decade since Citigroup was born from the merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group, it weathered many storms that threatened to pull it apart. But the current turmoil can be traced back to the last weekend of September, when it sought to reassert itself by swallowing Wachovia, the stricken bank based in Charlotte, N.C., whose vast deposit base would have turned Citi into one of America’s dominant lenders.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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it always seemed to me that citi had far too many employees for the number of widgets that they produced.
Citi has been on life support since the spring. Their only hope was to enter the “too big to fail” club by taking on Wachovia. Truth be known, Wachovia was in the better shape of the two, imho.
Why should federal tax dollars bail out Sandy Weill’s monument to his own ego? Weill’s Frankenstein monster of a bank should be broken back up into pieces and those pieces should be distributed out to banks led by folks who actually have a clue.
...I know it's anything but funny, especially for those employees about to lose their livelihood, but the thought of 'I see dead people' just flashed in my mind.
This is market manipulation, pure and simple, Citi has money.
If I can see this is market manipulation, and some group/consortium is poised to take over Citi, why can’t the SEC see it? Is the SEC asleep?
And it ain’t too difficult for me to figure out which group will take it over.
They’ve lost over 65 billion this year and are leveraged over 10 to 1. What makes you think it’s manipulation?
Tier 1 capital is 9.8% of assets if you believe they are not lying about their level 3 assets and are happy to count their tax loss carry forwards as capital.
If you suspect they are lying, their leverage well over 100 to 1. Personally I think that Citi is completely insolvent and has a leverage ratio of infinity.
jas3
My bank is Wachovia, and my mortgage is with Wells Fargo.
I was pleased when Fargo outbid Citi and took my bank. And Fargo did it without government guarantees.
I really think Citi only wanted Wachovia so they could get those government guarantees to protect them from their own bad paper.
Also, they were only buying the “good” parts of Wachovia.
Fargo took the entire company. And gave the stockholders a little bit of money in the process.
100:1 with L3? Wow-—I figured it might be 30:1 but that would be insane.
No Way.
Wachovia (First Union in fact) has/had more bad real estate deals in more depressed markets than Citi. Too they had the worst client loyalty and brand name in the country.
Citi isin tough shape. But it will survive. Pandit is making some hard but very smart choices right now including hanging tough until matters ease.
Watch after the inauguration. The so-caled main stream media will start telling us how matters really are not all that bad and the economy is fundamentally strong.
A very big chunk ofthe problem is the talking down of the economy by the so-alled "elites" to promote Obama.
The Wachovia I knew was an excellent, conservatively run bank, founded by Moravians known for their thrift and ingenuity, and named for the 100,000 acre tract of land that they acquired in colonial times for a haven from religious persecution, where the bank had been headquartered for well over a century.
Then, it was bought by that highly questionable entity down in Charlotte for its good name.
Didn’t take long to ruin that good name. Acquiring Golden West, and all its option ARMS, at the peak of the bubble, was a stroke of sheer idiocy.
But, idiotic though that was, it doesn’t come close to the rumored $37 trillion in derivatives held by Citi. Hence, my observation.
Wow, All this carnage from a failed Communist/Democrat Vote buying Scam......Who’d a thunk it??? ;-(
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