Company Overview
Highlights
Swapped its asset management business for Legg Mason’s brokerage unit in 2005, adding more than 1,500 brokers to its network of more than 12,000.
Sold its Travelers life insurance business in 2005.
Acquired of Bank of Overseas Chinese (BOOC) in 2007, for a total of $427 million, expanding Citi's domestic network to 66 branches and addeingone million new clients in Taiwan.
Citigroup is a financial services titan, with a presence in more than 120 countries, more than two million customer accounts, more than 3,000 bank branches, and more than $1 trillion in assets. The company is organized into three major business groups—Corporate and Investment Banking, Global Consumer Group and Global Wealth Management—and has one stand-alone business unit, Citigroup Alternative Investments, which offers hedge funds and private equity. Its range of services includes investment banking, commercial banking (mainly through subsidiary Citibank), asset management, financial planning, retail brokerage, and private banking for high-net-worth individuals.
No longer trying to become an all-things-to-all-clients financial supermarket, the bank’s management is now focused on improving margins by trimming costs and growing core businesses while divesting noncore businesses. The two most significant developments along these lines have been Citi’s recent swap of its asset management business for Legg Mason’s brokerage unit, which added some 1,500 Legg Mason brokers to Citi’s existing network of more than 12,000 brokers, and the bank’s sale of its Travelers life insurance business.Citi also announced its acquisition of Bank of Overseas Chinese (BOOC) in 2007, for a total of $427 million. The purchase expanded Citi's domestic network to 66 branches and added one million new clients in Taiwan.
The past year has been a bit tumultuous for Citigroup, however, as profits fell 12 percent and the company experienced a major shakeup of its higher-ups. CEO Chuck Prince resigned in 2007, as Citigroup reported plans to write off up to $11 billion worth of sub-prime mortgage-related securities. But before leaving, he named Robert Druskin as COO in and made former CFO Sallie Krawcheck head of the company's global wealth management division after the unit's chief, Todd Thompson, quit. The company announced plans to cut 17,000 jobs a few months later. In December 2007, Citigroup named Vikram Pandit chief executive of the bank five months after Vikram left Morgan Stanley to head the I-banking division of Citigroup. It also announced acting CEO Win Bischoff would serve as chairman. The newly reshuffled executives' primary mission will likely be to mend the company after major hits on holdings tied to U.S. subprime mortgages. Citi took a $6.5 billion write-down in the third quarter of 2007 and analysts now expect write-downs to exceed $11 billion by the end of the fiscal year.