Staggering

Just when you thought the crunch might not be real, look at this for a hit. Citigroup had to announce a loss due to the credit situation totalling an incredible $18.1bn which the Chief executive had to describe as "clearly unacceptable". This loss was apparently down to over exposure to bad mortgage debts.

Citigroup also commented that their revenues fell by around 70% in Q4.

Citigroup is set to receive a cash injection of $6.88bn from the Singapore government investment agency GIC and it was only recently that the Kuwait Investment Authority said it had bought a $3bn stake in the bank. Just last November, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority made an investment of $7.5bn.

This big hitting bank has cutting its dividend for the quarter by 41%, from 54 cents to 32 per share, as well as bringing in a further $14.5bn by selling securities (which includes the investment from GIC).

Citigroup isn’t the only one being clobbered by bad debt but their provision for bad debt is by miles the biggest so far.

Let’s look at what the rest have been hit for:

Citigroup: $18bn
UBS: $13.5bn
Morgan Stanley $9.4bn
Merrill Lynch: $8bn
HSBC: $3.4bn
Bear Stearns: $3.2bn
Deutsche Bank: $3.2bn
Bank of America: $3bn
Barclays: $2.6bn
Royal Bank of Scotland: $2.6bn
Freddie Mac: $2bn
Credit Suisse: $1bn
Wachovia: $1.1bn
IKB: $2.6bn
Paribas: $439m

It could be coming to a bank near you soon if it hasn’t already and squeezing your rates up to pay for someone else’s mess ups.

Get your credit book in shape soon !