“Citigroup Inc. became the latest bank to take a cautious view of consumers’ credit problems, reporting a $7.77 billion fourth-quarter loss due to failed loans and the costs of repaying $20 billion in government bailout money.”

“The bank’s loss after accounting for payment of preferred dividends came to almost $7.77 billion, or 33 cents per share. That compared with a loss of $18.16 billion, or $3.40 a share, a year earlier. In the third quarter of 2009, it lost $3.24 billion after paying dividends. The latest results were in line with analysts’ expectations, according to Thomson Reuters.”

“….But paying the government back also frees Citigroup of restrictions on how much it can pay its employees.”

“Gerspach said average compensation per employee, which includes salary, benefits and bonuses, in 2009 was about $90,000, about 1 percent lower than in 2008. In total, Citigroup spent $25 billion on compensation costs in 2009, down 20 percent from the year before. The average compensation per employee did not decline as fast because of the job cuts.”

Share on Facebook

Strauss-Kahn suggested Monday that the IMF would likely raise its 2010 global growth previously projected at 3.1%, factoring in to account that China, India and other Asian economies growth rates were returning to their pre-crisis growth rates. On the other hand advanced economies such as the U.S. and Japan remained “sluggish”.

The IMF doesn’t foresee a “double-dip,” or second recession, though risks remain, Strauss-Kahn said. He acknowledge that hundreds of billions in stimulus spending by world governments avoided another great depression, but what now concerns the chief is the exit strategy from the policies created by stimulus.

“Now we have to fix the consequences of the policy that has been put in place to fight against the crisis,” he said. “Finding the right time to implement exit policies is really a difficult one.”

“If you exit too late, you waste resources,” he said. “If you exit too early, you have a risk of going back into recession.”

Strauss-Kahn believes many lessons were learned from the financial crisis and one being that supervision must be increase rather than more regulations. “You may have the best regulations in the world, but if it’s not supervised correctly, it’s no use.”

Share on Facebook

Click on the image to enlarge

Share on Facebook