U.S. banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch reveal fresh $15bn loss!

April 13, 2008 - CITIGROUP and Merrill Lynch will heap further pain on Wall Street this week as they reveal additional sub-prime write-downs totaling $15 billion (£7.6 billion) or more.

In another sign of the intense pressure on leading banks, Deutsche Bank is attempting to offload some of its €35 billion (£28 billion) of toxic debt to a consortium of private-equity firms.

Huge exposure to American mortgages is expected to result in Citi taking a $10 billion hit to its accounts, dragging the bank to a first-quarter loss of almost $3 billion. Some analysts believe Citi’s write-downs could stretch to as much as $12 billion.

Merrill will suffer $5 billion of write-downs, analysts say, which would push the bank $2.7 billion into the red.

It is expected to knock a further 20% from the value of its sub-prime holdings, in spite of the fact that it announced $18 billion of write-downs only three months ago.

The new rash of Wall Street losses and write-downs come in addition to the billions that have already been recorded.