(dpa) -
US banking giant Citigroup announced plans Friday to cut 9,000 jobs in the wake
of a first-quarter net loss of 5.11 billion dollars.
Company chief financial officer Gary Crittenden announced the payroll cut plans
for the bank which employs 370,000 people around the world.
The 9,000 job cuts come atop the 4,200 job reductions which Citigroup announced
in January.
Crittenden's remarks came after the company reported its first- quarter losses
which came after Citigroup had to write down 12 billion dollars' worth of loans
and bonds in the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.
The first-quarter red ink compares with a profit of just over 5 billion dollars
in the same 2007 period and was somewhat higher than analysts' projections,
according to the Bloomberg financial agency.
The losses came on revenues of 13.2 billion dollars. While this was down
48 per cent from the first quarter of 2007, it was some 2 billion dollars
higher than projections given in a survey of analysts by Bloomberg.
Citigroup became the latest among major US financial institutions this week to report first-quarter problems in the further fallout from the
mortgage crisis and US economic slump.
On Thursday, Merrill Lynch reported a net loss of 1.96 billion dollars after
nearly 7 billion dollars in writedowns.
On Tuesday, Washington Mutual reported losing 1.1 billion dollars in the
quarter, while a day before that, Wachovia Corp. posted a loss of 350 million
dollars.
JPMorgan Chase on Wednesday reported net earnings of 2.37 billion dollars, but
this figure was down about one-half from the year- earlier results.