Prince Alwaleed Needs a Turnaround at Citigroup - Or Else

Prince Alwaleed has given Vikram Pandit one year to shape up or else.

I wonder what sharia has to say about investing like a doofus, throwing more money on a losing position, and then expecting common taxpayers to bail you out.

"Last week, Alwaleed boosted Kingdom Holding’s balance sheet by transferring $600 million worth of his own Citi shares onto its balance sheet. Shares of the investment group -- of which Alwaleed is a 95% owner -- have lost about half their value since 2007 and it’s had capital losses of 65% as of the end of the third quarter. The transfer of Alwaleed’s Citi shares should help secure its borrowing capacity, and it also means that the Citi shares aren't going to be sold anytime soon." Citi and Its Princely Problem

It appears as though the Prince's investment empire is on shaky ground.

No wonder Vikram Pandit has been noticeably absent from such recent, unimportant meetings like those with the President and the Congress.


Business Standard India
Perform or perish, Saudi Prince tells Vikram Pandit
Washington January 16, 2010, 14:05 IST

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is a major shareholder in the Citigroup, has told the bank's Indian-American CEO Vikram Pandit that his two-year honeymoon is now over and 2010 is a make or break year for him.

"I don't threaten those CEOs that I meet but I told him (Vikram Pandit) that the market gave you two years' leeway, but I think now it's time to deliver and 2010 for him is really the year to make it or break it and he has to deliver," Alwaleed said in an interview.

Alwaleed had recently met with Pandit and he had told him that he must deliver solid results in 2010.

"It's very important... For the shareholders that have been very patient with Citibank that the honeymoon is over now; two years is enough and I think he will deliver in 2010," Alwaleed said.

At the interview, the Saudi Prince also acknowledged that China is an economic power and eventually, it would translate that into political power.

"China is a rising power. For sure now, China is amassing huge power economically, financially, not yet politically, but I think eventually it is going to ask for this power to be translated to politics — no doubt about that," he said.

On the latest spat between China and the global search engine giant Google, the Saudi Prince sided with China arguing that firms should abide by the rules of a country or leave that nation. (I guess aggressive cyber attacks and human rights violations are just a cost of doing business. At least Steve Ballmer and the Prince see eye to eye on this one. Microsoft doesn't believe in human rights either. No wonder the prince is talking joint ventures with Rupert Murdoch. - Jesse)

"All these have to apply by the rules that are applied in that country. If you cannot play by the rules, then you should leave that country," he said.

Alwaleed also opposed the US President Barack Obama proposal to impose tax on large banks so as to recover the federal money used to fund these institutions during the global financial meltdown. (Abide by a country's rules or leave, Prince. LOL - Jesse)

US Commercial Real Estate a Multi-Trillion Dollar Bloodbath in Progress

Residential Real Estate in the US is in serious trouble, and a drag on the real economy. And yet it is holding up a bit because the Fed is buying over $1 Trillion in mortgage debt, presumably at artficially high prices to support it, and of course the too big to fail Wall Street Banks who were wallowing in the residential real estate bubble.

Commercial Real Estate is much worse, a bloodbath in progress. Down 42% and dropping with store, office and apartment vacancies soaring. And much of that paper is held by regional banks and REITs like Boston Properties (BXP), Vornado Realty Trust (VNO), Brookfield Properties (BPO), and a host of private firms and trusts.

Like the residential market, the pain in commercial real estate is not distributed evenly across geographic regions. So far the public equities have recovered reasonably after a breathtaking plunge, as compared to the SP 500's decline from the top. I am watching them for an indication or at least a confirmation of a double dip, a potential next leg down in the real economy and the financial markets.

I hope Ben is wearing a truss if he tries to put a floor under this one.

At least the rental market will be more economical for the foreclosed homeowners, but its hard to see who will be opening new retail stores and commercial businesses in the near future.

My Budget 360
Commercial Real Estate Is $3.5 Trillion Time Bomb Hitting the Economy

Some of you are probably not aware that the commercial real estate market has crossed a dreaded line in the sand. Commercial real estate (CRE) that includes apartments, industrial, office, and retail space is now performing worse than residential real estate. Not just by a little but by a good amount. While the CRE bust took about a year longer than the residential housing bust, once problems started hitting in this market prices have been steadily collapsing. At the peak, it was estimated that CRE values hit $6.5 trillion in the country. With $3.5 trillion in CRE debt outstanding, this seemed to provide a nice equity buffer. That buffer is now erased.

First we, need to examine the actual decline in CRE values by looking at data gathered by MIT:



Putting together all CRE values we find that the market has fallen by a significant 42 percent. Now assuming this figure, that $6.5 trillion is now “worth” approximately $3.7 trillion giving us an equity cushion of $200 billion for all CRE properties in the U.S. I doubt this figure is even that high. It is safe to say that commercial real estate is now in a negative equity position. The U.S. Treasury has discussed plans on bailing out this industry but not much has been done on this front since all the bailout funds have been concentrated on residential real estate and protecting the too big to fail banks. Many CRE loans are held in the smaller regional banks that are actually small enough to fail. The FDIC will be busy in 2010 given the above data.

Now looking at the residential market, prices fell earlier but have recently stabilized because trillions of dollars have been used to prop up the system:



Read the rest of the story here.

Weekend Highlight: The Bankers Testify to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

High drama.

Wes Craven's remake of It's a Wonderful Life



concept h/t Barry Ritholz

A Brief Bio of the Star of the Proceedings.



"The details of my life are quite inconsequential. My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really."

Up Next: A Pop on the Long End of the Yield Curve



Weapons of Mass Distraction
Fox Business News

Guest Post: An Analysis of JPM's Credit Card Business

2009 Credit Card Segment Results: JPMorgan Chase
By Keith Hazelton, The Anecdotal Economist

Credit Card Fee and Interest Income Soar as Nation's Largest Credit Card Company Hammers the Customers Who Bailed It Out in 2008

While we are waiting for the December Federal Reserve G.19 Consumer Credit report due February 5th, which will confirm 2009's complete collapse of Revolving Consumer Credit resulting from millions of the insolvent and near-insolvent 60 percent or so of Americans who carry credit card balances month-to-month but who desperately are trying to reduce the hideous debt-shadow which has remained long after the afterglow has faded from years of restaurant meals, trips to Disney World, flat-screen televisions, college tuitions and entrepreneurial forays, inquiring minds may care to put JPM Morgan Chase's full-year card services results under the microscope.

In JPM's January 15, 2010 earnings release, on pages 18-20 of its Earnings Release Financial Supplement, the nation's largest credit card company by cards and balances details the sorry state of what in better years was its most profitable segment.

JPM's 2009 Card Services segment results are summarized in the table above, which highlights some of the lowlights:

• End of year balances, both held and securitized (so-called Managed Card Assets), fell 14.1 percent in 2009 to $163.4 billion. The number of cards issued (not detailed above) also fell 14.0 percent to 145.3 million from 168.7 million at the end of 2008.


• Notwithstanding a $26.9 billion decline from 2008, JPM's credit card fee income (late fees, overlimit fees, telephone payment fees, balance transfer fees, annual card fees) soared 30.5 percent to $3.6 billion, and net card interest income jumped 26.4 percent to $17.4 billion as the bank clearly scrambled to raise interest rates on as many cardholders as possible ahead of 2010 rule changes.


• Reflecting those abominable fee income and interest income grabs from the very taxpayers who enabled their own misery by allowing JPMorgan Chase to be bailed out in 2008 along with the rest of the "too big to fails," the bank's credit card net revenue as a percentage of average balances grew 15.7 percent in 2009.


• JPM's 2009 total charge volume fell 11.0 percent to $328.3 billion, reflecting the nation's newfound preference for debit cards and cash.


• 2009 charge offs nearly doubled to $16.1 billion (Managed Card basis), representing 9.33 percent of average card balances.

So, JPM Chase in 2009 oversaw the charge-off of $16.1 billion of its own and securitized credit card balances, and its still-solvent card debt-slave customers paid down (or transferred, however unlikely) another $10.8 billion, which equals the $26.9 billion decline in EOY balances.

So far, according to the Fed, 2009 revolving consumer credit balances have plunged more than $100 billion through November, and it looks like JPM Chase, which held a 22 percent card market share in 2008, is accounting for slightly more of the decline than its market share would warrant.

Bank of America, the nation's number two credit card company, which reports 4Q and 2009 results January 20th, has been writing off its managed card balances at an annual rate of more than 13 percent, and we will look forward to seeing its grim full-year results, as well as those of the other dozen or so financial institutions which now control nearly 90 percent of the racket industry.

The nation's big banks in the 1990s and early 2000s wanted to consolidate the then-immensely profitable credit card industry in the worst way, and, as 2009 results will prove, they got it - in the worst way.

And to remind readers where we think revolving consumer credit balances are headed (to $300 billion - $500 billion from the nearly $900 billion last month) over the coming decade, here's a repost of a chart we first published in December.