Washington - Citigroup is close to a deal to be the last of the big Wall Street banks to exit the government's bailout program, after trying to persuade regulators that it was sound enough to stand on its own, The New York Times reported late on Sunday.
The newspaper said negotiations between the bank's executives and senior government officials went into the night on Sunday and could still collapse.
On Monday, President Barack Obama is to meet with the chiefs of the nation's biggest banks at the White House and press them to help speed the economic recovery by providing more loans to small businesses and homeowners.
The president, who has faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike for being too close to Wall Street, called Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and 10 other big banks to the gathering as anger over last year's bank bailouts continued to grow, the report said.
At the meeting, Obama will address the size of salaries and bonuses, an official said, as he seeks to impress upon bankers that they have a "special responsibility" to consumers.
"We have to get them off the sidelines and get them to play a more active role in our economic recovery," The Times quotes Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, as saying in an interview. "They play an essential role in helping the economy grow."
The negotiations between Citigroup and regulators come just over a week after the government allowed its troubled rival Bank of America to repay its bailout money and underscore just how quickly confidence has returned to the financial markets, the paper said.
That improvement holds the key to Citigroup's payback plan, as private investors replace $45bn of taxpayer funds and as the bank weans itself off additional forms of government assistance, the report said.
Citigroup officials plan to announce a broad programme as early as Monday, according to the Times. In a series of complex transactions, bank officials expect to raise about $18bn by selling stock this week, in an effort to assuage regulators' concerns about the bank's ability to weather another severe economic downturn without returning to the government for more money, the paper said.
With its regulators' permission, Citigroup would then redeem at least $20bn of preferred stock that the government received as part of the bank's first two rescues late last year, the report said.
It would also exit a federal insurance policy on about $250bn of troubled real estate and credit card assets, The Times said. The bank, not taxpayers, would then be liable for those losses.
- AFP