FYI/FYA (anxiety).
October 1, 2007
Citigroup Warns of 60% Earnings Drop
By ERIC DASH and JULIA WERDIGIER
Citigroup issued a profit warning today, estimating a 60 percent drop in third-quarter earnings because of write-downs for securities backed by subprime mortgages and loans tied to corporate takeovers.
Separately, UBS, Europe.s biggest bank, predicted an unexpected loss in the third quarter because of a $3.42 billion write-down for the value of mortgage-backed securities and announced a management shake-up.
Citigroup said it expects its third-quarter net income to fall to $2.2 billion from $5.51 billion in the period a year earlier as it books losses on loans related to leveraged buyouts, weak fixed-income trading results and the deterioration of complex mortgage-backed securities that contained bad subprime loans. It also said its consumer business would be hurt by higher credit costs.
.Our expected third-quarter results are a clear disappointment,. Charles Prince, the chief executive of Citigroup, said in a statement. .The decline in income was driven primarily by weak performance in fixed-income credit market activities, write-downs in leveraged loan commitments, and increases in consumer credit costs..
.We expect to return to a normal earnings environment in the fourth quarter,. Mr. Prince added.
Mr. Prince faces mounting pressure from investors because of Citigroup.s sluggish stock price. Today.s announcement, in fact, comes four years since Mr. Prince took over as chief executive from Sanford I. Weill. Its stock price was in the $47 to $49 range in October 2003. This morning it was trading at $46.21 after slumping about 1 percent on the profit warning.
Citigroup took the unusual step of moving its third-quarter earnings release to the morning of Oct. 15 from Oct. 19.
Citigroup.s warning comes as other Wall Street firms have hinted they will face serious profit declines. Last month, Merrill Lynch warned that its third-quarter results would suffer, and Bank of America.s financial chief said the turbulent markets would have a .meaningful impact. on third-quarter results. J. P. Morgan Chase has not publicly commented on its third-quarter results, but executives there have acknowledged tougher market conditions, which will likely have an effect.
So far, Wall Street investment houses that have announced their third-quarter results have run the gamut. Goldman Sachs powered through the turmoil in the credit markets to post a 79 percent increase in profit, its third-best quarter ever. At Bear Stearns, earnings fell 61 percent on sharp losses related to its hedge funds and exposure to subprime investments. Third-quarter profit was down 3 percent at Lehman Brothers and 7 percent at Morgan Stanley, but the performance at both companies was stronger than expected.
Citigroup said it expects to take a $1.9 billion pretax loss related to its fixed-income capital markets activities, which have been a cornerstone of its business ever since it absorbed Salomon Brothers. About $1.3 billion of those losses are related to the deterioration of mortgage-related securities, including collateralized debt obligations and other financial instruments containing bad subprime loans. It will also record a loss of $600 million in trading because of .significant market volatility and the disruption of the historical pricing relationships..
The company also said it expects to write down about $1.4 billion of funded and unfunded leveraged loans that have fallen in value. These commitments totaled $69 billion at the end of the second quarter and $57 billion at the end of the third quarter.
Citigroup also expects a $2.6 billion pretax rise in credit costs in its consumer businesses. About $1.95 billion, or three-fourths of the increase, is from money set aside to cover future loan losses. The remaining $650 million is from higher net credit losses in the quarter.
Citigroup, which has long championed that its diversity of activities could partly offset poor results, said other parts of its business performed well.
At UBS, the bank said it plans to cut 1,500 jobs and that Clive Standish, its chief financial officer, and Huw Jenkins, the head of its investment bank, are stepping down. The Zurich-based bank said its pretax loss for the three months through September was 600 million to 800 million Swiss francs.
The shares slumped as much as 4.3 percent in early trading on Monday in Zurich after the loss surprised analysts, who had expected the bank to remain profitable. The Credit Suisse Group reported a profit today even though earnings were hurt by the recent credit market slump.
Marcel Rohner, who took over as chief executive of UBS in July after his predecessor was ousted over losses at the bank.s in-house hedge fund, called the loss .unsatisfactory. and in order to .be as transparent as possible. he has taken .decisive action. and made appropriate senior management changes.
As part of the management changes, Mr. Rohner will take on the role of chairman and chief executive of the investment bank and Marco Suter, the bank.s executive vice chairman, will become chief financial officer. Walter Stuerzinger, the bank.s chief risk officer, will become chief operating officer. UBS will report full third-quarter results on Oct. 30.
UBS shares fell 1 franc, or 1.6 percent, to 61.6 francs in early trading in Zurich. The shares have fallen 17 percent this year compared with 10 percent at Credit Suisse.
The loss, UBS.s first in a quarter since 1998 when it had to write down its investment in Long-Term Capital Management, may raise concerns among investors that other lenders with large investment banking operations suffered similar losses on the back of collapsing prices for securities backed by mortgages and other high-risk debt investments following the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States this summer.
Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs already reduced the value of some of their fixed-income investments while still reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings last month. But their reporting period includes June, the month before the market downturn began, and some analysts have warned that earnings of banks whose third quarter excludes the profitable month of June may be hit harder.
Yet, investors may not get to know the full fallout of the market crisis until early next year as finance chiefs and accountants are working through large portfolios with extremely complex and often illiquid investment vehicles that are difficult to value correctly in times of volatile markets.
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