Citi never sleeps, advertisements from the US bank reminded customers at the weekend. Nor did anyone else as bail-out negotiations ran late into Sunday night. The result was a convoluted package to ringfence $306bn of Citigroup’s problem assets, with loss-sharing and guarantees from a trio of government backers, some of whom receive preferred stock and warrants in the bank. Then there is an injection of another $20bn in preferred equity under the Treasury’s troubled asset relief programme, plus $16bn in capital released thanks to lower-risk weighting.
The complexity diminishes the punch from this solution. There is no “bad bank” as the assets stay with Citi, revalued as part of the deal. Including some $8bn of existing reserves, Citi is on the hook for about the first 12 per cent, or $37bn, of losses, plus a share of the remaining losses.
