Moody’s Resets Citigroup Rating to “Negative” Outlook

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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On the back of the resignation of Citigroup (NYSE: C) CEO Vikram Pandit, Moody’s has “affirmed all its ratings on Citigroup Inc. (senior at Baa2) and its major subsidiaries including Citibank N.A., (senior debt at A3) but changed those rating outlooks that were previously stable to negative.”

Although some experts see the move as a changing of the guard from a CEO who could not turn Citi entirely around to a chief executive, Michael Corbat, who might, the change can also been seen as destabilizing.

Moody’s reports:

The negative outlook reflects the risk that this unexpected management change will negatively affect Citigroup’s ongoing efforts to install improved risk management practices throughout the firm. The financial crisis highlighted major risk management failures at Citigroup. The company has overhauled its risk management governance, and Moody’s believes Citigroup has been making progress in installing an improved risk culture. However, challenges remain considering the company’s commitment to global capital markets businesses, compounded by the size and complexity of the organization.

Moody’s said that negative rating actions could be taken if there were further departures of key senior management that could prove disruptive to Citigroup’s progress in enhancing its risk and control functions and culture. Negative rating pressure could also emerge if senior business leaders departed at a time when the company is implementing revised strategies within its major businesses of global capital markets, global consumer banking, and transaction and securities servicing.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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