Citigroup (NYSE:C) said Friday that it will buy back $535.9 million worth of its notes as part of tender offer which was previously announced. The cash tender offer expired at 5 p.m. Thursday. As of the expiration date about $535.9 million aggregate principal amount of notes were validly tendered and not withdrawn or were subject to binding commitments to sell to Citigroup. All of the debt notes being repurchased were scheduled to come due this year and in 2011. The move is part of Citigroup’s strategy to utilize available cash to terminate debt nearing maturity and reduce overall interest payments. The tender offer is not expected to impact liquidity, the company said. Citigroup expects to settle all tenders by May 11.
In other news Citigroup restated Friday that unfounded rumors suggesting one of their traders made a trading mistake and it contributed to the sharp market sell-off Thursday were “inaccurate and unfounded.” Many market observers stated they felt high-frequency trading programs were a contributing factor in the sharp sell-off. The comments come after an unfortunate period of speculation over Thursday’s event involving the company was out there with many media outlets, including TSCM, quoting traders as having said that a large erroneous trade was made by a Wall Street firm, purportedly Citigroup. The trade in question appears to have involved shares of Procter & Gamble(NYSE:PG), which plunged more than 30% in the course of just a few moments late on Thursday afternoon, slightly ahead of the overall market’s when the DJIA fell more than 600 points in less than 15 minutes. Citigroup began to defend itself late Thursday saying it had no evidence it was involved in any errant trade, then on Friday gave a strongly worded statement, that rumors about a trading error being made by the company were unfounded and with no basis in fact. “It is troubling that inaccurate and unfounded rumors were spread as far as they were,” Citigroup said in a statement.
Citigroup shares traded below the $4 mark on Friday for the first time in over six weeks; trading between 3.92 and 4.13. Shares closed out the day at 4 dollars even. The stock slid and traded with the broader markets after a horrific Thursday in which the Dow briefly dropped more than 1,000 points to below 10,000. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit has been making great progress in cleaning up the Citibank balance sheet, in fact the company posted its first quarterly profit in seven quarters just last month. Shares began rising steadily in early March, and even briefly hit the $5 mark last month. However shares are now down 17% since April 23, the last trading day before the Treasury announced its plans to begin selling off a portion of its holdings in the company. Volume remains regularly strong in this heavily traded stock.
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Disclosure: Currently no position in C
Outstanding,,,,,,,what other banks are doing this at this rate.
Citigroup stock is the best bank to buy.
As I stated before look for a merger soon most likely with Bank of America or J.P Morgan Chase.
Also,,a dividend increase after the government sells their shares.