Citigroup beats expectations with profit growth

Citigroup boosted fourth-quarter profit more than analysts estimated as it generated more revenue from investment banking and a portfolio of unwanted assets. Net income climbed to $3.34 billion (€3.04bn), or $1.02 a share, from $344 million, or 6 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based bank said on Friday in a statement.

Adjusted earnings per share of $1.06 beat the $1.05 average of 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

For the full year, the company reported adjusted net income of $17.1 billion, the most since 2006, helped by cost cuts.

Citi employs some 2,500 people in Dublin.

Chief executive Michael Corbat has been disposing of unwanted businesses to make the company more profitable and its earnings more predictable - a push that helped cut fourth-quarter costs from legal matters and restructuring to the lowest level since he took over in 2012.

The bank also benefited from last year’s global surge in corporate dealmaking.

“We have sharpened our focus on target clients, shedding over 20 consumer and institutional businesses” in recent years, Mr Corbat said in the statement.

“We have undoubtedly become a simpler, smaller, safer and stronger institution.”

Investment banking brought in $1.13 billion of revenue, a 5.5 per cent increase from a year earlier, surpassing the estimates of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg