Citigroup announced a series of repositioning actions that will further reduce expenses and improve efficiency across the company while maintaining Citi’s unique capabilities to serve clients, especially in the emerging markets. These actions will result in increased business efficiency, streamlined operations and an optimized consumer footprint across geographies.
Due to this repositioning, Citi said it expects to record pre-tax charges of approximately $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012 and approximately $100 million of related charges in the first half of 2013.
Citi currently expects that the repositioning will generate $900 million of expense savings benefitting 2013 results and that the annual expense savings will exceed $1.1 billion annually beginning in 2014. Citi also expects the repositioning actions to have a negative impact on annual revenues of less than $300 million. These actions will result in a reduction of more than 11,000 positions.
In a related story, Bloomberg said Citigroup’s announcement is the latest sign of strain from a market slowdown, stiffer capital rules and weak economic growth. Bloomberg noted that Wall Street’s cost cuts and dismissals, which have helped erase more than 300,000 financial-industry jobs in the past two years, are far from over.
Michael Corbat, Citi’s chief executive officer, said: “These actions are logical next steps in Citi’s transformation. While we are committed to – and our strategy continues to leverage – our unparalleled global network and footprint, we have identified areas and products where our scale does not provide for meaningful returns. And we will further increase our operating efficiency by reducing excess capacity and expenses, whether they center on technology, real estate or simplifying our operations.”
To read the full Citigroup news release, click here.