Financial Giant Citigroup going to bust itself up

The Wall Street Journal - Citigroup Inc. will soon announce a drastic plan to shed a host of businesses and shrink itself by one-third, say people familiar with the bank, which its executives say will essentially dismantle the financial colossus built by legendary deal maker Sanford Weill.

The bank announced Tuesday, as expected, that it will split off its Smith Barney retail brokerage into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley. Citigroup will also announce steps to shed two consumer-finance units and the company's private-label credit-card business, and scale back on the trading the company does on its own behalf. Citigroup declined to comment.

The moves, which the company intends to unveil along with its fourth-quarter earnings next week, would represent the final abandonment of the acquisition-fueled growth strategy that built Citigroup from a small consumer-finance business into one of the world's largest financial institutions, with more than 300,000 employees in more than 100 countries. The company would essentially strip itself of large pieces of the company formed in a landmark 1998 merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group by then-CEO Mr. Weill. The slimmed-down company would look much like the pre-merger Citicorp.