April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, posted its second straight quarterly loss on at least $15 billion of writedowns and increased loan losses as customers fell behind on home, car and credit-card payments.
The first-quarter net loss of $5.11 billion, or $1.02 a share, compared with earnings of $5.01 billion, or $1.01, a year earlier, New York-based Citigroup said in a statement. While the loss was worse than the $4.75 billion predicted by analysts in a Bloomberg survey, revenue exceeded their estimates. The shares climbed 6 percent to $25.46 in early New York trading.
``I think the worst is largely behind us,'' Malcolm Polley, who manages $1 billion as president of Stewart Capital Advisors LLC, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, said in a Bloomberg radio interview.
Citigroup's writedowns and credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market now total about $39 billion, more than Zurich-based UBS AG and Merrill Lynch & Co. Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive officer, has bailed out about 10 investment funds, replaced his chief risk officer, raised $30 billion to replenish capital and cut more than 6,000 jobs since he succeeded Charles O. ``Chuck'' Prince in December.
``It was a difficult quarter,'' said Peter Kovalski, portfolio manager at Alpine Woods Investments in Purchase, New York, which oversees about $12 billion and holds about 32,000 Citigroup shares. ``You're still seeing a deterioration in the residential market, which has really been a driving force in the writedowns, and that's going to continue.''
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