Citigroup Inc. (C)
| Previous close | 43.26 |
| Open | 43.36 |
| Bid | 43.00 x 1800 |
| Ask | 43.40 x 1800 |
| Day's range | 42.48 - 43.02 |
| 52-week range | 32.00 - 83.11 |
| Volume | 2,933,105 |
| Avg. volume | 23,876,641 |
| Market cap | 88.933B |
| Beta (5Y monthly) | 1.77 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 8.32 |
| EPS (TTM) | 5.14 |
| Earnings date | 15 Jan 2021 |
| Forward dividend & yield | 2.04 (4.72%) |
| Ex-dividend date | 30 Oct 2020 |
| 1y target est | 63.96 |
- Bloomberg
Citigroup Hunts Growth in Emerging Markets as Rivals Retreat
(Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc. plans to deepen its corporate banking presence in developing countries from Russia to South Africa even as some rivals decamp to focus on their home markets.The lender has overhauled its business in eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa to focus on emerging economies. The third-largest U.S. bank is betting unprecedented deal opportunities will follow the economic slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic, weak oil prices and political uncertainty.As part of the revamp, Citigroup in September shifted 29 of its operations across these three regions and another 30 units in countries where it doesn’t have a presence, creating a single emerging markets cluster.“We’re going to look at increasing the canvas for the bank compared to where we are now,” Naveed Kamal, chairman of EMEA EM corporate banking, said in an interview.The expansion contrasts with some of its European rivals. Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Plc have scaled back or retreated from Africa to focus on their home markets. Standard Chartered Plc is cutting staff and reducing its presence in Dubai, along with Nomura Holdings Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG.“We’re already hiring new resources and will hire more people as the opportunity grows,” Kamal said. “It will be a combination of either hiring more or reallocating resources.”Bigger BucketsDemand for emerging-market assets will increase substantially as global asset managers and pension funds look to generate higher returns in the low interest-rate environment, Rizwan Shaikh, co-head of Citigroup’s EMEA EM corporate-banking division, said on the same call.“Even a slight change to that mandate will mean substantial funds coming into emerging markets,” he said. “We want to be ready for that change.”Direct lending platforms set up by sovereign wealth funds like Mubadala and Qatar Investment Authority are further opportunities for the New York-based bank and its competitors.The lender’s emerging-markets business could get a further boost when Jane Fraser takes over as chief executive officer in February given her experience in some developing regions.“We’re excited about the entire region especially in light of the last seven to eight months,” said Aziz Rahman, co-head of EMEA EM corporate banking. “We see a common thread in EM from companies and sovereigns who are either looking to raise capital, do refinancing, and/or do more acquisitions and grow.”The bank expects sovereigns to keep tapping markets for their capital needs, with bond and sukuk sales from the Middle East and North Africa hitting a record $115 billion so far this year.Fiscal Space“These countries have significant sovereign wealth and fiscal space to borrow for investing in their economies for growth and to fund deficits,” Kamal said.The bank is the third top arranger of debt and sukuk sales from the Middle East and North Africa, behind HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It ranks third for Eastern European bonds after JPMorgan and BNP Paribas SA, and fourth in Africa.To complement the bond-sale spree, state-owned firms are also turning to asset sales to support their economies.Citigroup Sees Asset Sales Boosting $47 Billion Gulf Debt BingeWhile Citigroup isn’t expecting a big rush for liquidity from regional clients any time soon -- mainly because of quarterly earnings that either met or beat expectations -- this is poised to change.“There will be need for capital as things normalize and our clients look to reinvest for growth,” Shaikh said. “Most have held back spending in the past months and we expect pent up demand to drive a lot of capital raising in debt and equity.”(Updates with comment from co-head for EMEA EM in second paragraph after ‘Bigger Buckets’ subheadline)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Irish lender PTSB sells buy-to-let portfolio to Citibank for 1.2 billion euros
Ireland's permanent tsb (PTSB) <IL0A.I> on Tuesday announced the sale of a portfolio of 3,700 buy-to-let mortgage accounts for a consideration of 1.2 billion euros (1.1 billion pounds) to a subsidiary of U.S. bank Citibank <C.N>. The sale of the loans, which are predominately on interest-only repayment terms, are classified as performing and have an average remaining term of 10 years, PTSB said in a statement. Citibank, which is making the purchase via Citibank NA London, intends to syndicate the portfolio via securitisation following completion of the acquisition, the PTSB statement said.
- Bloomberg
SAP Sends Warning for Software Earnings With Forecast
(Bloomberg) -- Dire earnings results at SAP SE wiped out more than 35 billion euros ($41 billion) from the German software company’s market value in a matter of minutes, sending a warning to tech investors about the health of the business software industry.In a surprise release late Sunday, SAP, one of Europe’s largest tech companies, cut its revenue forecast for the full year and said it expected the fresh wave of Covid-19 lockdowns to hurt demand through the first half of 2021. The results caused shares to fall the most ever in a single day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg since 1989.SAP’s collapse caused the wider tech market to drop, with Europe’s Stoxx Technology index falling 7.6%, its biggest one-day loss since March. Shares of cloud-applications giant Salesforce.com Inc. fell 4.1% at 2:28 p.m. in New York. Oracle Corp. -- SAP’s main rival -- dropped 3.9%.“SAP is a bellwether stock for European technology and global software,” said Citigroup Global Markets analyst Amit Harchandani. “They have an insight into Fortune 500 companies and when SAP tells you they see headwinds, there will be some truth to the fact that some of the customers are challenged and don’t have the money to spend.”For some investors, SAP’s results have called into question the wider assumption that software companies will prosper during the pandemic, due to millions of employees working from home. Many of these companies, which deliver applications or services over the internet, have so far resisted the worst effects of a pandemic-fueled recession, and some have thrived while businesses operate remotely.Some major SAP clients may be reconsidering signing large contracts to update their software, as the pandemic continues to limit any global economic recovery. SAP has a wide range of products, many of which rely on winning and renewing major new deals for databases, as well as accounting, expenses or human resources software. Unsurprisingly, SAP said business travel had been particularly hard hit over the past quarter.Still, SAP has fared worse during the pandemic than many of its software peers. The company said in April that the virus had hindered new business, prompting worries that software vendors around the world might underperform. A few companies later weakened their forecasts, but most reported healthy growth. More recently, San Francisco-based Salesforce said in August that revenue climbed 29% to $5.15 billion in the previous quarter, and raised its revenue projection for the year.SAP’s poor results and weak outlook may suggest that a recovery for vendors of on-premise software -- based on a company’s own network rather than on the internet -- could take longer than anticipated, as clients continue to delay major IT upgrades, analysts at Citi wrote in a note Monday.Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, may be more affected than cloud-based providers since it offers database and financial-planning tools like SAP, and has a large base of customers who buy software for their own server farms. Last month, Oracle reported a return to sales growth in the previous quarter after years of largely stagnant revenue expansion, due to rising demand for its cloud-based products and falling interest in everything else. Oracle projected its sales would grow 1% to 3% in the current period.“The bigger surprise to us was the sharp deceleration in [SAP’s] cloud backlog numbers,” said Anurag Rana, analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Given that Workday and Salesforce.com had good quarters with healthy pipelines, it seems that could be losing share to pure-play cloud vendors, which would make it hard for them to attain any meaningful recovery in the near-term.”Investors now have an anxious wait before the major U.S. cloud software providers such as Salesforce, Workday Inc. and Oracle announce earnings in December.(Corrects spelling of analyst in 10th paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
