Citigroup Inc. (C) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the fireside chat with Jane Fraser. She really doesn't need much of an introduction, but I will say a few things. She's been CEO of Citigroup since March of 2021. She joined Citigroup about 19 years ago and held a number of CEO positions within the Citigroup, working her way up to the position she has today. As many of you know, Citigroup is the third largest bank in the United States. It has about $2.4 trillion in assets. It has a market capitalization of about $106 billion and has a very healthy CET1 ratio of 13.4%. So Jane, thank you very much for coming. I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much for having me here.

Welcome. I feel privileged to have you here. So thank you.

Thank you.

Maybe to start off with, we can talk about the progress to date that you've been working on since 2 years ago from your Investor Day, where you and Mark and the other senior management team members laid out what you were planning to do. And with that, I'll pass it.

Thank you. Well, we've been on a very deliberate path. We started with a vision for the bank, which revolves around our clients with cross-border needs. Then we set out the strategy of the 5 different interconnected businesses that we have. And in the last 2 years, we've just been very active at executing against that boldly and swiftly. So if I run through some of the different pieces. On the -- we've now organized around the 5 different businesses. We've been investing behind them, making sure we're beginning to realize the synergies, and I suspect we'll dive into some of them in a bit more detail shortly. On the -- we've also been focused on getting our exits of our consumer franchises internationally done. So we've closed all 9 of the franchises that were up for sale. So that's done. We have 3 different markets that are in wind down. We're over 70% complete in terms of the assets and the retail deposits in the wind down there, so very swift. And I was in Mexico last week, and we are well on track with the separation into the 2 banks there in the second half of this year and the IPO of Mexico next year. And as we got our shareholders in front of us, important to point out, $6 billion of capital that has been released so far from that. But we also have stranded costs related to it. About $3 billion of stranded costs and that we have got $2 billion of those already saved and addressed. So I think really good progress on that front. Then with those divestitures done and the exits done that enabled us to get our organization model and management model in line with our strategy. And that has been going on since September. We will be complete that at the end of this month. So that will be done, so we can look nicely forward, have the organization then focused on the forward view of Citi wholeheartedly. And then transformation, we have been busy transforming the bank as well because we didn't have enough of other things to do. So we've been focused on technology, and we've been focused, in particular, on getting us onto a much more modern infrastructure for the bank driving into better data capabilities and governance, into our risk and controls and into automation. So a big agenda there, which is also addressing the consent orders that we have. And then finally, on the talent front, we've definitely been frontfoot there. And I've been pleased with our ability to get the best talent in the individual areas that we're looking at. So and you see as an example around the table and wealth, but this quarter, with Andrei Magasiner, who's going to be joining us on April 1 as our new Treasurer and Viz Raghavan, who will be joining us as our Head of banking. So I feel good that we've got a lot of the decks cleared over the last couple of years of different things that are going to enable us to focus on our core business performance and to focus on the transformation that we need to do and have the bank realize its potential.

Very good. And I remember at Investor Day 2 years ago, you, Mark and others were very frank about the challenges that you had in front of you and what you had done previously, it was not up to really the standards that you wanted it up to. In this divestiture period with all of the geopolitical issues, you had curve balls thrown at you during these last 2 years. How would you rate yourself in terms of what you were hoping to do and where you are today?

We're slightly ahead of where we thought we would be. So if we look at a lot of the org simplification, we were able to pull that well over a quarter earlier than we expected. And most people tell us that if you're going to do a big reorganization and simplification of the order we have, it normally takes you 12 months. We've done it in 6.5. So that's been very swift. I think we've had geopolitical, we've had regulatory, we certainly had macroeconomic challenges that have affected us, our clients, the industry across the board, I think everybody has learned how to be a lot more adaptable. So we've been swift at adapting, but still continuing to deliver what we said we would deliver. And we deliberately set the strategy out that way. So we weren't expecting it to be dull, and it wasn't, but we've adjusted.

That's for sure. In fact, how challenging is it to do a reorganization, divest what you've divested and then running your day-to-day business? How do you balance that out to keep everybody focused in the right areas?

Well, I think it comes from the clarity. So it comes from the clarity of the vision, which we were able to say this is what Citi is, which before was a little bit convoluted. And now we say it really is around these 5 interconnected businesses. It's around a client base that is largely those multinationals, be it midsize, be it large corporations or investors who have cross-border needs and then, of course, our U.S. Personal Bank here at home. And that simplicity does help drive it. We also knew what were the issues that have held us back from accountability, being more shareholder-driven, the need for that and around the need to get our risk and control environment and our infrastructure modernized. So it's not rocket science what we're doing. I think it's clarity and then we just make sure that we execute and get on with it. So that's what we've been doing, stick to the plan, head down and just relentlessly execute.

Very good. And talking about simplicity, can you remind us some of the layers that you've kind of removed just so people can understand that there's a real accomplishment here?

Yes. Thank you. We, as I say, the simplification, the goal here is we want to make the org structure and our management structure line up with the bank we are today and not the bank we were when we were more of a financial supermarket as it were. So now it's around the 5 businesses. It enabled us to greatly simplify the organization management structure, and there's a number of dimensions to it. The first one and really 3 things that we are focused on. First was bringing the 5 businesses up to and report directly into me. So we are eliminating the layers beneath me and bringing that straight up. And that helps drive accountability and transparency, which I think you'd have seen from the reporting structure that we now have that we're giving all of our shareholders and investors a lot more transparency there. The second piece was around our international franchise because we're not running the local retail banks everywhere. We can simplify that tremendously. We put it -- streamlined it and put it under a much slimmer and more streamlined international organization. And I'll run through some of the benefits from that in a minute. And probably the most important made us a lot more client focus. We freed up a lot of people's time from unnecessary governance, management layers and various other pieces to put a lot more time on their clients. And even our major revenue producers are seeing a big difference on that. So those were the 3 main changes. Then if we translate it into organization and look at the health metrics. We will, at the end of this month when we are done and we are then moving forward on -- into sort of what I call BAU mode on the simplification front, we'll be -- we will have just over 98% of the firm will be operating under 8 layers. We had many, many more before. So that is a dramatic simplification of the organization. Similarly with the span of control, we're looking at increasing the span of control for our managers by up -- by at least 2, we will be there. We've also reduced down the ratio of non-producers to producers, so to help us drive productivity in the organization that we've been also looking how far down managing directors go in the institution and make sure we don't have -- not the best balance there, and we've got into a really strong one now. Similarly, we've been taking out co-heads. We've been taking out matrix reporting lines. So we have a very, very clean and much flatter and, therefore, more agile structure. Next thing on it is getting governance into better shape. So we have taken out a lot of committees. I'll give an update on exactly where that came to in terms of the percentage. And I'm not sure if you will be delighted or horrified by how many we were able to take out, but a lot of simplification of governance and again, clarity of accountability. Third area that we've also been focused on is structure. So looking at our banking organization, we put the investment bank, the corporate bank and commercial bank under one umbrella. Greatly simplifies driving synergies in the firm, consistency of delivery to clients. We've also been making sure that all the ways that are on different record control units operate is absolutely standardized across the firm. So everything is much simpler and streamlined. So that again makes execution of our transformation easier. So these are the types of changes, putting -- getting rid of joint ventures that we have and having one unit accountable to real driving a particular business, financing and securitization on the markets as an example. And then finally, getting that transparency for everyone. There is a bright shining light on every single one of our 5 businesses because you've seen it. We've laid bare the financial performance of every single one of those franchises down to the ROTCE numbers that are so critical for our medium-term targets. There's no way to hide from you or from me, and Mark. So from that perspective, I mean, this -- when we talk about this being consequential change in Citi, it is significant. And at the end of the first quarter, when we do the earnings, we'll give you the financial results that we actually achieved. And I confidently expect them to be slightly better than what we talked about. But it's not just the economics, this is a different Citi. It's been a lot of work.

Yes, absolutely. Speaking of 2024, if you had to rank the priorities, obviously, Mexico is that the biggest or when you talk about the reorganization of what's left to do, how do you rank that?

It's really only Mexico. Yes. So it's the separation of Mexico into the institutional business, which is a very important hub for any institution, particularly American these days, but not only at the near-shoring where we're seeing all the FX, trade, cash management, et cetera, that we dominate there. So that franchise gets separated out from Banamex. We've announced 2 separate management teams already. We have a highly respected Chairman, Ignacio Deschamps, who was the Head of International for Scotia, so the Head of Banamex, as Chairman, helping drive the IPO process there. And we're on time for everything that we're expecting, I'd say, down on the ground there. So we'll have the full separation in the second half of next year. But we've got all of the testings been going since October. And I'm feeling as confident as one ever can do when you've got a big project like that, but of that of all the divestitures, it's really that and the last $1 billion of the stranded expenses, which will get a good benefit from the expense base in this year from the expenses we took out before.

And the separation, as you referred to between Mexico and Citi will be the end of this year and then the IPO.

Second half of the year and then the IPO 12 months after.

Market conditions, I guess, impact the decision when to do the IPO?

Yes. We'll have to see what the market conditions look like at that point. But we will be ready from then on and we'll be making that decision based on the timing on what's in the shareholders' best interests. We're very clear of where the priority sits.

Yes. Speaking of IPOs. Maybe we could talk about...

Market conditions, yes.

And maybe we can start off with capital markets. What are you hearing from your clients and markets and investment banking and with the investment banking activity?

Yes. And I'll give some guidance on the numbers as part of that. So look, on the corporate side, I think the sentiment is definitely improving. When we see it, it's not back. We had a wallet of sort of $65 billion last year, so $80 billion, $83 billion is probably a reasonable range for this year. M&A, we've had some good announced deals coming out, but there's obviously a lag to when that converts into revenue. So the M&A numbers in terms of close have been lower, but the announced as a leading indicator. I think ECM has been a bit slower than everyone thought it would be and that's been, but it's picking up, and DCM has been extremely active. And I think the sentiment from clients, North America is more on the front foot. I think the European clients are a little bit more concerned around their competitiveness given the cost of energy, given labor productivity and competitiveness, whereas the U.S. just feels more on the front foot. And I think the only real concerns from corporates is obviously the rate environment is framing a lot of decisions at the moment. Middle East, a little bit, mainly around shipping and around supply chains rather than the markets. So you put all of that together, I think we'll see -- continue to expect to see strong DCM this year and this quarter, say ECM a little bit muted than expected and M&A, as we talked about with the lag. So bottom line, our investment banking fees, our expectation quarter-over-quarter is it will be up in the low teens. And then on the market side, certainly risk on from many investors at beginning of the year, and January was very active. We saw it particularly in spread products. Equities had a good run across the board. We saw asset management banks, treasurers very active in the primary issuance market and buying that up. But a lot more tepid from everyone in the secondary markets, particularly the private equity and the asset managers. I think a lot of people in rates have been waiting to see because of the uncertainty around timing and magnitude of cuts. So rates has been more -- have been a lot quieter than usual. And then the hedge funds as well have been a little less active. So I think people looking at data in the active space of really looking at the data before they're willing to commit capital. So what does that mean in terms of the markets, we had a -- we had an extraordinary first quarter last year, which you love at the time and then you always regret it 12 months later, particularly on FX and rates. So I think this time, we're expecting to see our markets overall probably down year-over-year, 8% to 12% range is the expectation for the quarter. But that's off the back of a really strong rate and FX last year.

And the investment banking numbers, just to be clear, is year-on-year?

Quarter-over-quarter. So -- because I think at the moment, when we're looking at it, you're looking at what's the momentum. So it's the investment banking fees quarter-over-quarter, up low teens.

Yes. And so quarter-over-quarter is to first quarter last year?

Quarter-on-quarter is fourth quarter. And I think that's consistent with what you're hearing from others.

Correct. Well, on the strength of last year's markets, how much did the switch over from LIBOR to SOFR help? Was that a factor in why business was so strong?

No, for us, if you think of what Citi is, I mean we're just ripped everywhere geographically. And when you've got volatility around exchange rates, interest rates and commodities, we were hedging a lot for a lot of multinational companies. So I think the difference for us versus others is the strength of that corporate base. And they tend to be a more stable base, but with everything happening geopolitically in the world and macro and other dimensions, it was an incredibly active first quarter on that front. And we certainly saw a lion's share of that.

Continuing with the outlook for the quarter. What are you guys seeing for expense growth? And then second, credit. Obviously, you've got a big U.S. presence here in credit cards. Maybe you can share with us your thoughts on what you're seeing.

Yes, absolutely. So on the expense front, I think fairly simply, we have been very disciplined about our expenses, whilst we're making the investments we need in our core businesses and in the transformation we've got. So we expect for this quarter, I think roughly really in line with what Mark's been guiding to see just a bit over $14 billion of expenses, but that also includes the severance and restructuring associated with org simplification and the other actions that we've been announcing. And on the credit side, it's really in line with what we thought it was going to be on the consumer front. So if we look at branded cards for the full year, we would be expecting about 3.5% to 4% of the NCLs range coming in for the full year. And on the CRS, which is -- feels a little bit more to the off prime in the base. On that one, we'd expect to see more of the 5.75%, 6.25% range. So nothing particularly perturbing there. I would say that for the full year, I would note, particularly for CRS, it's seasonal. It's a very seasonal business. So when you look at it, expect the seasonality, and I think the full year numbers are going to also get a bit affected by payment rates as well as by what's happening with the sales from our partner sales as well as, obviously, the actual losses. So those 2 factors affect ANR on the one hand, and the losses we get, we do have partner sharing, loss sharing, so you will see part of that be kick back up in the noninterest revenue line. So that's really on the consumer front. Corporate side, balance sheets are very, very healthy. So we are really not seeing anything much there. And I know everyone is very focused on commercial real estate, particularly the office space, it's not really a factor for us. We've got a very healthy portfolio. We keep a very close eye on it, but it's not really material. So for the -- we'll be looking at about $2.7 billion of total cost of credit when you bring all of that together for the quarter. And we're quite -- we prefer to be conservative in our assumptions that go into our macro models, so that we find that often is the better way to go.

Especially with credit.

Given where the credit is, but I'm not worried about credit.

Coming back to the corporate comment, it's so strong. When you talk to the CEOs of your corporate base, what are they -- why they -- why is it so good? I mean we've had 500 basis points of rate increases and you are right, the corporate market is very healthy.

I think they've done a very good job on balance sheet management. We obviously tilt because we've got that 90% of our clients internationally are investment grade and 85% of all our wholesale portfolio. So we're going to see typically in our client base, ones that have really been able to take advantage of the longer tenor and low interest rate environment. So they're particularly healthy compared to others. And we're pretty good at selection around this. We put a lot of time and effort into it. So their balance sheets are healthy. And look at health care in the U.S., look at technology, look at energy and energy transition, you're seeing a lot of Europeans investing into the U.S. as well as taking advantage of the lower cost base in Asia. In the U.S., we've also got more of the near-shoring, French shoring, Mexico benefit happening, et cetera. We're seeing productivity numbers kicking in. So I think the U.S., I would never bet against an American entrepreneur.

I agree. I have one in my family. Anyway, the full year, when you look at your expenses, you remarked on the fourth quarter call, we're clear that you think you can have -- $53.5 billion to $53.8 billion. Are you guys still comfortable with that? And second, could you carve out the severance or the...

Actually, 1 thing I do want to make clear is all of the numbers on expenses are pre the FDIC because they're going to make a likely change in the special assessment. We don't know what it is. We don't expect it to be huge, but the guidance I'm giving, given we don't know what that is ex that. Now we're -- we're with the guidance we gave. We're being very focused around it. You'll also see within that number, there's about $700 million to $1 billion of severance and restructuring included in that guidance. So that is included in there.

Got it. Very clear. Maybe we could talk about Basel III end game, capital buybacks, what are you guys thinking? What are you hearing? Obviously, you're critical to that process. Maybe share your thoughts, please?

I do think there's a lot of new news for you there. So we're given where we're trading, we clearly want to do buybacks. Equally, I don't -- we don't want to make commitments and then until we know what the Basel III endgame is. I think we've been fairly clear about our concerns with that set of proposals for the system, particularly around availability of credit, particularly for the lower income and the smaller business owners around it and smaller banks and the like, we're concerned about international competitiveness, I mean, comparing the U.S. to the European regime in particular. And we are also concerned that whilst a healthy nonbank sector is good, when it gets too big, it gets problematic. And so I think that balance, we're getting into a more concerning zone of the growth of certain sectors of the nonbank financial system. So I think those will be unintended consequences that people should have eyes wide open on and that we're certainly active as is everyone in pointing those out. But until we know what it is, we gave the guidance of where we think the upper ranges of the impact was, which is sort of 16% to 20% of capital. And we'll obviously look at mitigants once we know exactly where the rules come out.

And you guys have succeeded in passing CCAR every year and the new scenarios are out. I assume you guys are very comfortable with those.

We are extremely comfortable with our capital. We have 13.3% CET1 ratio, it's actually slightly higher than that. It's 13.4% at the end of the fourth quarter. We have abundant liquidity and our clients do like giving more to us when things get challenging. We've got $22 billion of reserves in the credit space and very high coverage on it. And we're not the bank we were. We have a very high credit ratings and as I say, 90% of our wholesale credit internationally and 85% for the whole of the wholesale credit is investment grade. And we have a very prime heavy offering in our card franchise, where we're about 80% across the 2 franchises that is 680 and above FICO, so really high prime. So as I say, we're in a very strong position. So whatever the world throws at us in the next -- in the coming years, we'll be in a position to support our clients and focus on them.

We're ramping up here with time. So maybe in what we've covered here today, what's your level of conviction of that medium-term 11% to 12% return on tangible common equity goal that you have set out? And then second, what do you want investors to take away from today's discussion?

Look, we have high and determined conviction behind the medium-term targets. And then over the longer run, continuing to improve upon them. We are very focused now that the decks are clearer. Of all the things I started off with, that we can focus on driving the returns and the growth of our 5 core businesses and the different synergies between them. We are focused around our expense discipline as well as the different investments that we need to make in our core businesses and in the transformation that we need to, but we've laid out a pretty clear path from the exits, the stranded costs, getting out of hobbies and some of the non-core businesses that we've been in, getting that expense base into the right shape and rightsizing the expense base of our businesses. You'll see that in wealth and you've seen in banking, you'll see that across the board. And we've been very disciplined in our capital markets. We took 20% of RWA out of markets in the last couple of years or so, had a small impact on revenues but not a huge one. So I think the message to you is we're making fast, rapid progress. We are being bold. We're being extremely disciplined in how we execute. It's always a bumpy road, the transformation of this magnitude, there's going to be bumps in the road geopolitically, macro, regulatory, et cetera. Anything of this scale will have them. We're just getting on with it, heads down, get on executing and you're seeing us delivering what we said we would. But we're also resilient and determined.

And when you look at the fundamentals of driving to get to that medium-term ROTCE number. Does managing -- and after all the rules are in place. So maybe this may be longer than medium term, how much more important will managing the excess capital will be to take that ROTCE even higher?

Given where we're trading, it's a very important piece. Every decision we make is very mindful of what the bar is for our intents of giving money back to our shareholders versus versing -- investing in the firm itself. And you've seen that with decisions that we've made to exit some of the smaller businesses. You see it in the decisions we make with partners where there are card programs come up for renewal and the like. We are obsessively focused around returns, but not just running the bank for the short run, running the bank for the long run. We're not going to make mistakes that we've made in the past on that. And you'll see more and more of the results and you have the complete transparency to hold this accountable to them as I'm holding our team accountable and myself for it. We're getting this done.

Great. And with that, we've run out of time. So please join me in a round of applause thanking Jane Fraser.