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Financial: Citigroup

Ticker Symbol: C

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About the company

Headquartered in New York City, Citigroup (C) is a diversified global financial services bank holding company whose businesses provide a range of financial services to consumer and corporate customers.

The merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group in October of 1998 created the financial conglomerate known as Citigroup. Citigroup’s history dates back to the City Bank of New York, founded in 1812.

Under the helm of CEO Sandy Weill, Citi would evolve into a "financial supermarket", operating in multiple segments of the financial services market. Travelers Insurance merged with Primerica in 1993, becoming Travelers Inc. Weill acquired Shearson brokerage the same year for $1.2 billion and Salomon Brothers in 1997 for more than $9 billion in stock.

After the Citicorp/Travelers merger, Citigroup spun off its Travelers unit in 2002. By 2005, investors increasingly voiced their concerns that Citi had become unwieldy, citing its hulking balance sheet and overreaching scope of operations. The unfolding credit and housing crisis would lead to the breakup of Citigroup as became known under Weill. High exposure to toxic collateralized debt obligations sent Citi’s stock price tumbling below $4/share, prompting the U.S. government to inject $45 billion into the troubled bank and backstop roughly $306 billion in loans.

On January 13th, 2009, merged its Smith Barney unit with Morgan Stanley, and will eventually give up any stake it owns in the brokerage house. 3 days later, Citigroup announced it will restructure its business model with Citicorp running the retail and investment banking businesses while Citi Holdings will contain the brokerage and assetmanagement segments.

Despite its troubles, the revenue generating capacity of Citi is vast. Citigroup boasts a huge consumer banking and global wealth management segment, and its Banamex unit is the second largest bank in Mexico.

Citi’s product line includes its Citi Cards, Consumer Lending Group, CitiFinancial, Global Wealth Management services.

Vikram Pandit is the current Chief Executive Officer, Richard Parsons recently replaced Win Bischoff as Chairman of the Board, and Gary Crittenden is the Chief Financial Officer.

Citigroup's Competitors:

Tier 1 Competitors: JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), US Bancorp (USB)
Tier 2 Competitors: Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), PNC Financial Services (PNC), BB&T Corp (BBT), State Street (STT) Ambac (ABK), MBIA (MBI)