"Desperate"
Meredith Whitney must be an uncommonly courageous individual.
She's the analyst at CIBC whose downgrade of Citigroup at the start of this month played a major role in Citi's big selloff, and the departure of CEO Chuck Prince.
Now she's back with some more bitter medicine, calling Citi's Abu Dhabi deal "not enough, and certainly too late."
“They’re desperate,” said Ms Whitney. “This $7.5bn is just not enough money by a long shot.” She believes that the odds that the bank, the world’s largest by assets, will still cut its dividend are “100pc”, while adding that the company may be forced to sell more than $100bn of higher quality assets at a discount in order to raise cash.
After her earlier call on Citi, she says she was the target of death threats by angry investors. Who knows what'll happen this time? Good thing her pro wrestler husband can serve as round-the-clock muscle.
Update: Whitney's made it safe for everyone else to come out of the woodwork. At a conference in Washington today, economist David Hale says the 11% yield Abu Dhabi will get is "the kind of yield you'd expect from a bank in Nigeria or Kazakhstan."
Comments: