(April 14): Citigroup Inc traders rode a wave of volatility to push the Wall Street bank to its highest quarterly revenue in a decade, notching another success for chief executive officer Jane Fraser’s turnaround plan.
The fixed-income unit, Wall Street’s second largest, generated US$5.2 billion of revenue in the first quarter (1Q), a 13% jump from a year earlier, Citigroup said in a statement on Tuesday. The much smaller equities business hauled in a record US$2.1 billion, a 39% increase. Together, the teams reported the company’s highest quarterly trading haul since at least the financial crisis.
The bank reported its highest quarterly return on tangible common equity in five years and said it was about 90% of the way to completing the programmes it established to fix back-office and regulatory-reporting problems. Those have been the target of penalties imposed by banking regulators since 2020.
The results represent another milestone for Fraser, whose firm has long been a Wall Street laggard. Citigroup shares climbed 1.2% at 10.46am on Monday, making them the second best performer in the KBW Bank Index.
“We’re off to an exceptionally strong start in 2026,” Fraser said in a statement.
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Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser says 'we’re off to an exceptionally strong start in 2026'.
Citigroup’s banking division, led by Vis Raghavan, was the only one of the firm’s five units that failed to deliver positive operating leverage. Fees rose 12% from a year earlier to US$1.23 billion, short of the US$1.27 billion average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That came on the heels of a blowout fourth quarter, when its fees from handling mergers and acquisitions surged.
“We had a very solid month as it relates to our investment banking business,” Chief financial officer Gonzalo Luchetti said on a conference call with journalists, adding the pipeline of deals was “very active”, despite possible risks from uncertainty over the Iran war.
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Overall, net income increased 42% to US$5.8 billion, or US$3.06 a share, beating the US$2.66 average estimate of analysts. Revenue of US$24.6 billion also topped Wall Street predictions.
The company is set to host an investor day in early May, when it’s expected to update its financial targets. It previously forecast that return on tangible common equity, a key measure of profitability, would reach 10% to 11% for this year. It hit 13.1% in 1Q, up from 9.1% from a year earlier.
The company’s facing higher expenses, with costs jumping 7% from a year earlier.
Citigroup said it bought back US$6.3 billion of shares in 1Q. The bank expects buybacks to be higher this year than in 2025, according to the firm’s presentation.
Citigroup’s fixed-income results contrast with those of Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s, which fell 10% and missed Wall Street estimates.
Revenue at Citigroup’s consumer credit-card business, now a separate unit, reported a 4% increase in revenue amid higher customer spending and an increase in new accounts. Still, the bank said in a presentation that it boosted its provision for credit losses, citing “increased uncertainty in the macroeconomic outlook”.
First-quarter revenue at Citigroup’s services business, a global money-moving juggernaut for corporates and governments, jumped 17% to US$6.1 billion.
The wealth business, which now includes the retail bank, reported an 11% increase in revenues. Last month, Bloomberg reported that bank executives had weighed buying another bank or wealth brokerage.
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