Citigroup (C) 01 (May 08 - Nov 08)

[kennynah]

small kaysee lah...one small state suing....not like SEC or AG ....

问题不大，大不是问题

[blid2def]

Okay, this is the one I was referring to. Very long report; as usual, I just post the teaser, and fans go to the link to read the rest.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... v74H1onfac

Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
Merrill `Co-Opted' Analysts Backed Auction-Rate Debt (Update2)

By David Scheer

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Four days before Merrill Lynch & Co. stopped supporting the auction-rate securities market and left thousands of individual investors stuck with securities they couldn't sell, the firm's analysts recommended clients buy.

``Reports of the imminent demise of the auction market seem to be greatly exaggerated, again,'' analyst Kevin Conery wrote in a Feb. 8 research note. ``We continue to be impressed by the auction market's resiliency.''

The remarks show Merrill's researchers were ``co-opted'' during a seven-month drive by the New York-based firm's sales force to prevent a meltdown in the $330 billion market, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin alleged yesterday in an administrative complaint filed in Boston. As the sales desk pushed analysts to publish upbeat notes, managers used gallows humor to complain about a ``collapsing'' market and the end of $2,000 dinners.

[kennynah]

bro...i think since got meat and sauce all.... better shift this to MER thread...u think?


*******



30 mins later .....((ok...i guess not ))

[blid2def]

bro...i think since got meat and sauce all.... better shift this to MER thread...u think?

*******

30 mins later .....((ok...i guess not ))

Yah I'll shift later. Or maybe not. See I lazy or not lah. 4 posts only, maybe I diam diam u diam diam nobody notice okay?

[kennynah]

Sorry, u were saying something?

[millionairemind]

Citigroup Said to Close Remaining Tribeca Global Fund (Update1)
By Josh Fineman and Jonathan Keehner

Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc. is closing a $400 million convertible arbitrage fund, the final step in winding down its $2 billion Tribeca Global Investments group, people familiar with the plans said.

Tribeca Convertible LP has been hurt by investor redemptions, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the decision isn't public. The fund's managers, Andrew Wang and Jeffry Chmielewski, are likely to leave New York-based Citigroup, the people said.

The closure of Tribeca Global, set up in 2004 with a goal of attracting as much as $20 billion, comes as Citigroup struggles with its alternative-asset management unit. The bank most recently shuttered Old Lane Partners, the hedge fund Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit co-founded and sold to the bank last year. Citigroup in March started closing its Falcon Strategies hedge funds after suspending redemptions.

The primary strategy of Tribeca Convertible was investing in U.S. and overseas stocks and ``equity-related securities'' using ``convertible securities arbitrage,'' according to a regulatory filing in April by MetLife Inc., which had holdings in the fund as recently as 2006. Convertible arbitrage funds typically buy bonds while betting that the same issuer's common stock will drop.

Citigroup, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, said in September it was closing Tribeca Global Investments and returning money to clients. About $400 million in convertible and Asian securities would remain invested within Citigroup Alternatives, the bank said at the time.

Fund Returns

Tribeca Convertible was down less than 5 percent this year, people familiar with the fund said. That compares with a 6.7 percent decline in the Fixed Income-Convertible Arbitrage Index, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc. The fund rose 20 percent in 2006 and 5 percent in 2007.

Jon Diat, a Citigroup spokesman, declined to comment or make Wang and Chmielewski available.

``We just don't comment on specific investments we might be making,'' MetLife spokesman Christopher Breslin said.

Citibank said in 2004 it hoped to attract as much as $20 billion after hiring Tanya Styblo Beder from New York-based Caxton Associates LLC to transform the $600 million Tribeca fund from a convertible arbitrage shop into a multistrategy pool.

Beder left in September 2006. Dean Barr, who took over after her departure, resigned in April 2007, less than a week after Pandit's team was named to run the private-investments group. Oliver Dobbs, the last head of Tribeca, left in February.

Citigroup's alternative investment division has about 950 employees and about $54 billion under management.

Old Lane Closing

The bank in June closed Old Lane, which returned 2.8 percent in 2007, and took a $202 million writedown on its investment. The fund's holdings have either been disbursed to clients or are being managed inside Citigroup, officials said.

Falcon Strategies Two fell in value by about 80 percent, according to a lawsuit filed by investors this year. The suit was dropped last month after a judge rejected a bid to halt liquidation of the fund.

Hedge-fund clients typically pay fees equaling 2 percent of assets and 20 percent of investment profits. The loosely regulated investment pools can bet on falling as well as rising asset prices, and managers gain substantially from profits on money invested.

Citigroup has fallen 36 percent in New York trading this year, giving the bank a market value of $102.8 billion.

[ishak]

Credit-card securitisation drags it US$176m into the red for the second quarter
Bloomberg - 06 Aug 2008

(NEW YORK) Citigroup Inc has reported its first loss since at least 2005 on credit-card securitisations, signalling that risks may be growing in a business that generated US$3.5 billion of revenue in the past three years.

The biggest US credit-card lender lost US$176 million for the second quarter packaging card loans into securities, the company said in an Aug 1 regulatory filing. The New York-based bank completed fewer deals and was forced to mark down its own US$9 billion stockpile of the debt instruments and other stakes that the company amassed while selling them to investors.

Led by chief executive officer Vikram Pandit, 51, Citigroup manages about US$202 billion of credit-card loans worldwide, about US$111 billion of which have been turned into securities and sold, according to the filing.

Delinquencies on the securitised portion have jumped by 16 per cent since the end of last year to US$2.16 billion as of June 30, Citigroup said. The firm's results may portend similar losses for rivals.

Banks and other card issuers 'are predicting higher net charge-off rates across the credit-card industry', said Meghan Crowe, a Fitch Ratings analyst who tracks credit-card issuers including American Express Co, Capital One Financial Corp and Advanta Corp. 'Things have been worse than anticipated.'

Citigroup spokeswoman Shannon Bell declined to comment. The company's shares fell four US cents to US$18.83 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Monday.

Job losses and higher food and petrol prices have squeezed consumers, causing more of them to fall behind on bills and damping a market for credit-card debt that has so far withstood the collapse of the mortgage-backed securities industry. Wachovia Corp analyst Glenn Schultz predicted in a July 18 report that loan charge-offs by credit-card securitisation trusts industrywide may climb to 7 per cent in coming months from 5.6 per cent currently.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp, the second-biggest card lender, had about US$2.9 billion of interests in securitised card loans as at March 31, according to a regulatory filing. No 3 JPMorgan Chase & Co, based in New York, had about US$2.9 billion of so-called subordinated interests, according to a filing.

On July 18, Citigroup posted an overall US$2.5 billion net loss, mostly stemming from writedowns on mortgage-related securities including so-called collateralised debt obligations, which are bonds backed by other debt.

The bank also reported higher costs to set aside money to cover bad consumer loans.

In its Aug 1 filing, Citigroup said that 'higher funding costs and higher credit costs flowing through the securitisation trusts' were the primary reasons for an 11 per cent revenue decline to US$2.93 billion in its North American credit-card business.

Like other banks, Citigroup packaged credit-card loans into securities so it could tap into the pool of fixed-income investors looking for bonds not tied to corporate debt, municipal bonds or mortgages.

That market has slowed, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In July, banks and securities firms issued US$2.1 billion of credit-card securities, the lowest monthly volume in two and a half years. The industry issued US$6.8 billion of them in July 2007.

Citigroup has about US$6 billion of 'trust-issued securities' backed by credit cards, according to the Aug 1 filing. The bank said that it has another US$3.1 billion residual interest in credit-card securitisation trust cash flows.

[ishak]

Citi talks with regulators may lead to buybacks
REUTERS - 06 Aug 2008

WASHINGTON - Citigroup is in talks with state and federal regulators to resolve allegations of wrongdoing in the auction-rate-securities market that could result in its buying back several billion dollars of the illiquid securities, Wall Street Journal said.

If Citigroup reaches an agreement with regulators, the firm could be forced to spend more than US$5 billion to buy out individuals, charities and other investors whose cash is tied up in the frozen auction-rate-securities market, the Journal said citing people familiar with the negotiations.

It also could include a fine of as much as US$100 million, the paper said citing sources.

Citigroup has been in talks this week with representatives from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office, other state securities regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the paper said.

Mr Cuomo last week threatened to charge Citigroup, accusing it of fraudulently marketing and selling auction-rate securities, and destroying documents that had been subpoenaed.

David Markowitz, chief of the state's investor protection bureau, had accused the largest US bank by assets of wrongly telling customers that auction-rate debt was safe, liquid and the equivalent of cash.

[kennynah]

we all knew where C's lowest point would be....since Nov2007...yes...we all knew the lowest point....we just didnt know how to unlock the mystery.....

crap lah....that was just to draw your attention....

i suppose it's all very subjective...but i just thought this was so wonderful.....and i didnt even try to force fit the lines...

what is really subjective is the choice of the low point. and the way i selected this low point...is really WAVE 1 (comprising 3 smaller waves), the EW concept.... hahaha...hamtam only lah...means...i could be so darn wrong here...

and this is how it looks like...just look at the "predictive" power....yeah yeah...we dont predict, we dont gamble, we dont speculate...yeah yeah...i've heard that a thousand times...

Citbank - Weekly Chart

[kennynah]

Citi to buy back $20 billion of auction rate securities: report
August 7, 2008 10:09 AM ET

(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc is to buy back $20 billion of auction-rate securities from individuals and institutions, reports CNBC, citing sources.