Whitney Unrelenting on Citi

Meredith Whitney has another scathing report on Citi. Whitney has slashed her earnings forecast for FY08 by 70% and says Citi may need to sell as much as $100 billion worth of assets to shore up it's balance sheet. from marketwatch.com

Oppenheimer slashes Citi EPS outlook, sees big asset sales

Oppenheimer analysts on Monday slashed their earnings estimate for Citigroup Inc's. (C) full year 2008 earnings per share estimate by 70%, to 75 cents from $2.70, and said the bank may have to sell $100 billion of assets to put its balance sheet right. Analyst Meredith Whitney said Monday that Citi shares could fall below $16 a share as they retreat to valuations from the last difficult credit cycle of 1990-1991. "The three largest problems for Citigroup are further writedowns to their carrying values of CDOs related to sub-prime mortgages, further writedowns from leverage lending commitments, and further writedowns associated with on balance sheet consumer loans," Whitney wrote in her report.