Citigroup Enlarges TARP Initiatives

Citigroup, Inc. (C - Analyst Report) yesterday published its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) Progress Report for the second quarter, stating that it has loaned an additional $6 billion backed by TARP to support American homeowners and help the U.S. economy.
 
The new lending initiative aggregates the value supported by TARP to $50.8 billion as of June 30, 2009. The bailed out bank has put to work $15.1 billion of that total, or nearly one third.
 
Citigroup has made a total of $330 billion in new credit available including $129.7 billion in the second quarter to U.S. consumers, businesses and communities since October 2008. New lending to U.S. consumers in the quarter increased 22% sequentially to $56.2 billion.
 
As part of the new initiatives during the quarter, up to $4.0 billion were allocated to Citigroup to provide letters of credit to state and local governments, municipal agencies, healthcare organizations and other public finance clients for up to three years.
 
Additionally, up to $2 billion were allocated to provide financing to mortgage loan originators via warehouse lending facilities.
 
Citigroup has used more than half of the money it has deployed from TARP to buy mortgage securities in the secondary market.
 
We think Citigroup is on track to help homeowners and credit card borrowers facing difficulty due to the market turmoil.
 
Since the start of the housing crisis in 2007, Citigroup has helped approximately 625,000 U.S. homeowners to avoid potential foreclosure on mortgages totaling more than $67 billion.
 
During the last quarter, Citigroup worked with approximately 108,000 borrowers with a total value of more than $16 billion.  Citigroup is also helping more than 1.4 million U.S. consumers and small businesses to manage their credit card debt through a variety of programs.

Read the full analyst report on C