Citigroup released its first quarter earnings results before opening bell this morning, posting earnings of $1.10 per share and $17.6 billion in revenue. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.03 per share and $17.4 billion in revenue. In last year’s first quarter, the bank posted earnings of $1.51 per share on $19.7 billion.
Citigroup’s revenue impacted by credit costs
Citicorp reported $16.1 billion in revenue, while Citi Holdings reported $1.5 billion. The bank said lower and higher credit costs drove this year’s quarterly revenue declines. Allowance for loan losses was 2.07% of total loans or $12.7 billion. Citigroup had $619 billion in loans at the end of the quarter, which was about flat with last year. Deposits climbed 4% or 5% in constant dollars to $935 billion.
Citigroup’s Global Consumer Banking segment saw revenues decline 6% to $7.8 billion, while its net income fell 28% to $1.2 billion. The Institutional Clients Group recorded a 12% decline in revenues to $8 billion on the back of a decline in Markets and Securities Services revenues and a 9% decline in Banking revenues.
“While our market-sensitive products clearly suffered from weak investor sentiment during the quarter, we continued to make progress in several key areas,” said Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat in a statement. “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.”
Citigroup’s capital ratio improves
Citigroup’s book value per share amounted to $71.47, while tangible book value per share was $62.58. The bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 Capital Ratio rose from 11.1% last year to 12.3% this year. The bank’s supplementary ratio was 7.4% at the end of the quarter. It returned $1.5 billion to common shareholders and bought back 31 million shares during the first quarter.
Shares of Citigroup climbed 2.38% to $46.10 in premarket trades after this morning’s earnings report.