Citigroup on Friday announced its best quarter earnings since 2007 but also showed signs it continues to struggle in the recession.
The New York-based bank reported first-quarter 2009 revenues of $24.8 billion and a net income of $1.59 billion but its stock price dropped 18 cents a share.
Analysts polled by the Thomson Reuters market intelligence company had expected a loss of 34 cents a share and revenue of $22.9 billion.
“We are pleased with our performance,” said Vikram Pandit, Citi’s chief executive officer. “We had our best overall quarter since the second quarter of 2007.”
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The profit also was roughly double that of the same period last year, according to the report.
However, the company reported that credit card revenue declined 10 percent and that it has cut roughly 13,000 jobs since the fourth quarter of 2008 — to 309,000 — and roughly 65,000 since peak levels.
Citigroup shares were down 2.5 percent, to $3.91, in early trading.
Citibank, with roughly 200 million commercial-bank customers in more than 100 countries, is among the U.S. banks to received government-bailout assistance and has been among the hardest hit by the mortgage crisis and fall of mortgage-related securities.
The company reported credit costs increased 76 percent to $10.3 billion — $7.3 billion in loan losses and a $2.7 billion increase in reserves for future losses.
The first-quarter report is one of several by major U.S. banks over the past eight days that have exceeded analysts expectations and to show signs that the worst of the recession might be over.
On Thursday, JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, reported earnings of $2.14 billion — better than expected but 10 percent less than the $2.37 billion in earnings a year earlier. Company stock fell 40 cents a share in the first quarter, according to the report, but per-share profit was expected to be 32 cents, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
On Monday, the Wall Street-based investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reported $1.81 billion in profits and said it will issue $5 billion in stock to help repay the $10 billion Treasury Department loan it received last year. The report also exceeded analysts’ expectations.
On April 9, Wells Fargo was the first of major U.S. banks to report first-quarter earnings. The company forecast a record $3 billion profit for the first quarter, assuring investors anxious about upcoming bank earning reports and helping the Dow gain 247 points.
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