How Citigroup Wowed With Earnings

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) reported its first-quarter financial results before the markets opened on Friday. The company said it had $1.10 in earnings per share (EPS) on $17.6 billion in revenue. That compares to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters of $1.03 in EPS on revenue of $17.46 billion. In the same period of the previous year, the bank posted EPS of $1.51 and $19.81 billion in revenue.

At the end of the quarter, Citigroup’s loans were $619 billion, roughly unchanged from the prior year period, and up 1% in constant dollars. Deposits totaled $935 billion, up 4%, and up 5% in constant dollars.

This mega-bank had a Common Equity Tier 1 Capital Ratio of 12.3% for the first quarter. At the same time, book value per share was $71.47, and tangible book value per share was $62.58.

CEO Michael Corbat commented:

While our market-sensitive products clearly suffered from weak investor sentiment during the quarter, we continued to make progress in several key areas. We grew loans and deposits in our core businesses, reduced our expenses while absorbing a significant repositioning charge, utilized additional Deferred Tax Assets, and generated capital in excess of what we returned to our shareholders.

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He added:

We also drove another significant reduction of assets in Citi Holdings, which were down 10% from the end of last year and, for the seventh quarter in a row, Holdings was profitable. Given that Holdings now accounts for such a small percentage of Citi’s balance sheet, we will no longer report its results separately after this year. Winding down Holdings has been a longtime goal and shows Citi’s progress in becoming a simpler, smaller, safer and stronger institution.

Shares of Citigroup closed Thursday up 1.7% at $44.98, with a consensus analyst price target of $56.08 and a 52-week trading range of $34.52 to $60.95. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock was up 2.8% at $46.25 in early trading indications Friday.