Only someone just emerging from a lengthy coma would have swallowed Citigroup’s explanation for the sale of its Phibro commodities unit as “consistent with Citi’s core strategy of a client-centred business model”. Not unless that business model involves intentionally losing money.

The sale was all about reconciling public anger with banker pay and an ironclad contract with head trader Andrew Hall for a $100m bonus. The sale price, said to be about Phibro’s net asset value of $250m, would have been a steal even at the height of the financial panic. Coming at a time when markets, including those for commodities, have recovered, purchaser Occidental Petroleum was in the right place at the right time – a fortunate beneficiary of political interference. Even for such a volatile business, the unit could easily have gone for $2bn or more based on its average earnings of $371m in the past five years. That is a pro rata opportunity loss of $600m for US taxpayers based on their 34 per cent stake in the lender because it was too embarrassing to pay someone a bonus that he will be paid anyway.