Citi's CFO: write-down warning for Q2

NEW YORK — Citigroup's chief financial officer on Thursday warned that the nation's largest bank by assets would suffer more "substantial" write-downs on debt investments in the second quarter.

CFO Gary Crittenden also said that there will likely be more write-downs related to leveraged loans and bond insurers.

He said that credit costs on the whole would be higher in the second quarter than in the first due largely to reserve builds in the mortgage portfolio.

Citigroup shares fell 23 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $20.17 Thursday.

Crittenden did say Citi's second-quarter write-downs on structured debt products known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, would be lower than they were in the first quarter.

In the first quarter, Citigroup marked down the value of its CDOs by about $3 billion. All told, in the first quarter it wrote down more than $14 billion.

The executive spoke at a conference hosted by Deutsche Bank.

His comments come on the heels of Fifth Third Bancorp's decision to raise $2 billion in capital, and futures and options broker MF Global's warning that tight credit spreads will weigh on its fiscal first-quarter earnings.

Crittenden added to investors' worries by suggesting that the credit markets remain tight.

Credit spreads for bond insurers, particularly for companies such as Ambac Financial, have been widening significantly over the past few days, he said.

Credit spreads are the differences between yields on risky debt and safe debt. When they widen, they indicate that the market is averse to taking on risk.