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| Citibank's parent, Citigroup, lost $7.6bn in the fourth quarter, partly as a result of repaying bailout cash. Photograph: Lisa Poole/AP |
The sprawling American financial services company Citigroup suffered a $1.6bn (£1bn) loss for 2009 but said it had made "enormous progress" in recovering from the brink of collapse.
The bank's year-end deficit was a significant improvement on its $27.7bn loss for 2008. At the height of the global financial crisis, the US government was obliged to pump $45bn into Citigroup to keep the firm in business and American taxpayers were eventually left with an ownership stake of 34%.
Citigroup's results show a recovery led by the firm's Wall Street investment banking arm. Profits from brokerage and asset management were $7.1bn, compared to a $764m loss a year ago.
But Citigroup still made a $7.6bn loss in the final quarter of the year, depressed by the $6.2bn cost of repaying some of the emergency bailout money it received from the US government.
"It was our responsibility to get our own house in order," said Citigroup's chief executive, Vikram Pandit. "We greatly improved Citi's capital strength, reduced the size and scope of the company and refocused our business strategy to take advantage of our unmatched global network."
Citigroup has cut its global workforce by 100,000 people, partly by offloading large chunks of its business including a deal to hive off its Smith Barney brokerage arm into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley. It has divided its assets, putting its promising divisions in a business called Citicorp and its more troublesome "legacy" operations into an entity known as Citi Holdings.
In pre-market trading before the official opening of the New York Stock Exchange, the results sent Citigroup's shares down by just over 1%.
Pandit, who has committed himself to working for a nominal salary of one dollar annually until Citigroup returns to sustained profitability, said he believed he had repositioned the bank for revival: "I believe we are positioned for long-term success, and have a strategy that combines our international footprint, global talent and unique capabilities to serve our clients and customers here and around the world."
