The business stories that matter, by Fortune's Colin Barr
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May 9, 2008, 7:33 am

Big asset sale coming at Citi?

Get ready for more drama at Citi (C). The big bank will finally unveil its new strategy in a meeting with analysts and investors Friday, Fortune’s Carol Loomis writes. The bank will identify $400 billion in assets that it wants to sell as part of a cost-cutting plan, the Financial Times reports. The FT, citing sources familiar with Pandit’s thinking, says the CEO will use Friday’s meeting to rebuff calls for a breakup of the company, which has taken $34 billion in writedowns since the mortgage mess started to unravel last summer.

The report prompts Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism to offer a conditional endorsement of Pandit’s efforts. “From the outside, Pandit appears to be moving methodically but with sufficient speed to tackle the megabank’s problems,” she writes. But Michael Shedlock, a longtime Citi critic, says the asset sale plan smacks of desperation. “The amazing thing is Citigroup clinging to a dividend it cannot afford,” he writes.  “Exactly what is a sale of 20% of the company other than a breakup?”

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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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