Citigroup Unlike Other Big U.S. Banks

There has been consistent negative commentary about Citigroup (C) over the past several months. The basic premise of those with a negative view is that Citigroup is too big, too diversified, is not led by a banker, and has a smaller U.S. retail operation than other banks of comparable size, such as Bank of America (BAC) and J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM).

Citigroup, though, is different than most U.S. banks and is one of two truly global banks. The second global bank is HSBC Holdings (HBC), which trades as an ADR in the U.S.

Citigroup is a vast company, with operations in over 100 countries and approximately $1.6 trillion in assets, a market cap of $269B, and approximately $20B in net income (after subtracting the sale of its life insurance and asset management operations) in 2005. HSBC is of similar size with operations in 76 countries, approximately $1.7 trillion in assets, a market cap of $202B, and $15.8B in net income in 2005. In the U.S., only Bank of America and J.P. Morgan come close to Citi in asset size and net income.

Although the banks categorize and report their operations differently, a quick comparison of their global operations show that neither Bank of America nor J.P. Morgan has the global footprint of Citi or HSBC. After considering that a major portion of Bank of America’s and J.P. Morgan’s international operations are related to investment banking, we can see that Citigroup is a global bank on par with HSBC, while Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase are much stronger within the U.S.

Disclosure: The author does not have a position in any stocks discussed at the time of writing.

C vs. JPM vs. BAC vs. HBC 1-yr chart