Citicorp
Citigroup (NYSE:C) is the largest financial services conglomerate in the world. During the past 3 years it has been by most measures the largest company in the world, with the largest profits and the most assets. Its planned formation was announced on April 7, 1998 through a merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group.
Despite its size, it currently only has about a 5 percent market share in financial services, and its amount on deposit is dwarfed by international banks (especially in Japan), which have seen much more consolidation. Former president Gerald Ford is on the board of directors.
It is listed at the New York Stock Exchange and is part of the Dow.
Citigroup was formed in 1998 by the then-illegal merger of Citicorp (a bank holding company for Citibank) and Travelers Insurance. This was illegal because the Glass-Steagal act (legislation stemming from the United States' Great Depression era), did not allow banks to merge with insurance and brokerage companies. (At the time Glass-Steagal's enforcement was already being phased out.) The Federal Reserve granted the parties a two-year trial period prior to the merger, and subsequently Glass-Steagal was invalidated by the passing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization act of 1999. The merger was orchestrated by then-chairman Sanford I. Weill.
Some member companies:
- Citibank, provinding consumer banking products.
- Citimortage, Mortgage Lender
- Citifinancial, Consumer finance aka sub-prime lending
- SmithBarney, investment services, both retail full service brokerage, private client services, and the formerly the brand name used for the investment bank
- Primerica, A company which engages in multi-level-marketing of financial services
- Travelers Life & Annuity, insurance services.
- Diner's Club International, credit cards.
See also: bank, investment bank, commercial bank
