Citigroup to launch stock exchange offers this week
Citigroup Inc. expects to do its previously announced swaps of preferred stock into common stock later this week, the bank said in a statement Monday.
Citigroup Inc. expects to do its previously announced swaps of preferred stock into common stock later this week, the bank said in a statement Monday.
Citigroup originally announced in late February that it wanted to offer investors the option of exchanging preferred stock into common stock. The move would give the U.S. government a 34 percent stake in the New York-based bank.
The deal would also boost Citi’s common equity, a benchmark the government is using to measure a bank’s ability to manage losses.
The government has invested a total of $45 billion in Citigroup through its Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. About $25 billion of that $45 billion in TARP funding is expected to be converted into common stock.
The exchange offers require various federal approvals, Citigroup said. But the bank said it expects to launch the offers “later this week,” and shot down speculation that federal banking agencies delayed approving the offers. It called the press reports “entirely incorrect.”
Citigroup slipped 4 cents to close Monday at $3.42.
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