New York, May 9:Global banking giant Citigroup Inc, which has been battered by the subprime crisis, plans to sell assets worth $500 billion in the next two to three years. Revealing Citigroup’s future plans to investors and analysts today, its India-born CEO Vikram Pandit said that many of these assets have attractive prices and the company is looking for risk reduction.

“We continue to believe in the right economic interest for the company,” he said during a conference call with investors and analysts today. In the last two quarters, Citigroup has lost more than $14 billion primarily due to the US subprime crisis. Revenue growth in transaction services, global wealth management and global consumer was due to a combination of growth in business volumes, acquisitions and sales of non-strategic assets.

Besides, the double-digit revenue growth in Asia, Latin America and Japan was offset by revenue declines in the US and EMEA. Citigroup is also aiming a revenue growth of about 9 per cent in the next two or three years. The banking giant is targeting the highest growth of 14 per cent in revenues from its transaction services, followed by global wealth management and securities and banking at around nine per cent in the next 2-3 years. It expects revenues from the global cards business to grow 7 per cent and the consumer banking at 8 per cent during the period.

The company expects an efficiency ratio of 75 per cent from global wealth management business, 65 per cent in securities and banking and 55 per cent in the transaction services over the next three years. In the global cards business, it expects to have an efficiency ratio of 33 per cent, transaction services 55 per cent and consumer banking 54 per cent. Citigroup Inc had reported a net loss $5.1 billion for the first quarter of 2008. “During the first quarter, valuations of our subprime related exposures in fixed income markets and leveraged finance assets have further declined and credit costs in our consumer lending businesses have increased,” Pandit had said last month.

Ads By Google