Citigroup’s transformation is heading in the suitable direction, nevertheless it did hit a snag this week.
Citigroup (NYSE:C) reported strong second quarter results Friday, with earnings rising 10% year-over-year because of a successful effort to scale back expenses.
Nonetheless, despite the better-than-expected earnings and revenue numbers, the share price was down as much as 4% on Friday to a low of $63.35 before bouncing back over $64 per share within the early afternoon. However it was still down about 2% on the day.
What drove the value down, despite solid earnings?
Cost cutting initiative boosts earnings
Citigroup, the nation’s fourth largest bank, had solid if not spectacular revenue numbers in Q2. Revenue climbed 4% year-over-year to $20.1 billion but was down 5% in comparison with Q1. This was barely higher than analysts had anticipated, as they estimated $20 billion in revenue. But Citigroup got a $400 million one-time revenue boost from cashing out a share exchange offer with Visa (NYSE:V).
Citigroup posted year-over-year revenue gains in all of its businesses, led by banking, where revenue climbed 38% to $1.6 billion. Investment banking was a brilliant spot, as revenue surged 60% year-over-year to $853 million. Personal banking was also up, rising 6% to $4.9 billion. Markets, its institutional trading arm, also saw a 6% revenue increase.
Net income soared 10% year-over-year within the quarter to $3.2 billion, or $1.52 per share, which exceeded estimates to $1.39 per share. Nonetheless, net income was down 5% from Q1.
Earnings spiked on account of Citigroup’s expense reduction initiative, which CEO Jane Fraser announced last yr to reorganize and streamline operations. It resulted in a 2% year-over-year decrease in expenses to $13.3 billion and a 6% reduction from Q1.
“We’ve got made an incredible amount of progress in simplification — each strategically and organizationally. We’re modernizing our infrastructure to enhance our client service and automating processes to strengthen controls. We are going to proceed to execute our transformation and our strategy so we will meet our medium-term targets and proceed to further improve our returns over time,” said Fraser.
Fined by federal regulators
One among Fraser’s goals when she took over as CEO in 2021 was to enhance Citigroup’s internal controls and risk management processes. Under the previous leadership, Citigroup had been fined about $400 million by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for unsafe and unsound risk management practices.
The firm subsequently announced a $1 billion initiative to modernize and improve its internal controls, which was a part of Fraser’s reorganization plan.
Nonetheless, it seems that the remediation plans haven’t proceeded fast enough, as Citigroup got hit earlier this week with $136 million in additional fines from the OCC and the Federal Reserve Board.
The regulators said Citigroup “failed to satisfy remediation milestones and make sufficient and sustainable progress towards compliance” with the OCC’s order from 2020.
“While the bank’s board and management have made meaningful progress overall, including taking needed steps to simplify the bank, certain persistent weaknesses remain, specifically with regard to data,” Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu.
The OCC is asking on the bank to refocus its efforts on take the needed corrective actions.
In an announcement, Fraser acknowledged that there are areas where they’ve not made fast enough progress.
“We’ve intensified our focus and increased our investment in those areas over the past several months. We are going to get these areas where they have to be, as we now have done in other areas of the Transformation. As we’ve said from the start of this multi-year effort, we’re committed to spending what’s needed to handle our consent orders,” Fraser said in an announcement.
Is Citigroup a buy?
The chance management issues put a damper on an overall solid earnings report and caused the share price to drop Friday. The news likely shattered the boldness of some investors that, perhaps, the transformation was not on target.
While it is a setback, Citigroup has made solid progress and appears to be headed in the suitable direction, perhaps more slowly than anticipated. But Fraser had an enormous vessel to show around, so it actually takes time.
The stock is up 25% YTD and I still like where it’s headed. It’s trading below book value and has a forward P/E of 11. I believe it’s a solid buy for investors in search of a superb value stock with a superb dividend. Although, that assumes it fixes its internal controls to the satisfaction of regulators.