The business stories that matter, by Fortune's Colin Barr
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March 4, 2008, 7:20 am

Dubai says Citi needs more money

Citi (C) is in dire straits indeed. The $22 billion that the financial titan raised in recent months from investors including funds in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Singapore won’t be enough to see Citi through the credit crisis, the head of Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund predicted Tuesday. “It will take a lot more than that to rescue Citi and other financial institutions,” Sameer al-Ansari,  Dubai International’s chief executive, said at a private-equity conference in Dubai, Bloomberg reports. Al-Ansari, whose fund has invested in HSBC (HBC) but not in Citi, told Reuters it will “take a lot more money” to pull Citi through the mortgage mess.

The bank has taken $18 billion in writedowns tied to the collapse of mortgage-backed securities, but Merrill Lynch analysts expect Citi to take an added $15 billion in mortgage-related writedowns in the first quarter and to post a loss of $1.66 a share. No wonder the stock, down more than 1% in premarket trading Tuesday, is trading within a dollar of its 52-week low.

jim, you make an excellent point - as do you, robert. as some hard hitters would say, the beat goes on.

Posted By Colin Barr : March 4, 2008 8:26 pm

Dear Mr Barr,

Citi is trading at a NINE year low, as stated in your other entry ‘March 4, 2008, 10:47 am
Citi hits new low’ and not 52-week low as in this entry.

Posted By Jim, Singapore : March 4, 2008 7:49 pm

Greed has come home to roost. And Citibank will expect the American taxpayer to pull them out of this. What difference does it make? Thanks in large measure to the 3 trillion dollar debacle in Iraq, the dollar will soon be worthless. Drop it from helicopters. Just don’t be under it when it happens.

Posted By Robert, Chesterton Indiana : March 4, 2008 1:14 pm

294 days to go

Posted By Petrache, Maglavit, OR : March 4, 2008 9:37 am
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Colin Barr covers business and finance for Fortune.com. Previously he was an editor at TheStreet.com and author of the weekly Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street column, and an editor at Dow Jones Newswires.
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