Citigroup reports continued losses in third quarter

New York, Oct 16 (DPA) Citigroup extended its financial losses for a fourth quarter, registering a loss of $2.8 billion for the period between July and September.

The bank attributed part of its loss to nearly $10 billion in writedowns from loans gone bad and securities that have lost value.

'While our third quarter results reflect both a difficult environment, as well as continued writedowns on our legacy assets, we are making excellent progress on the parts of our business we control, including expense reduction, headcount, and balance sheet and capital management,' said Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive officer.

'We expect these improvements will enable us to realise the full earnings power of our franchise as the economy stabilizes,' he said.

One year ago, Citigroup posted a profit of $2.2 billion. But in the last four quarters, it has reported a loss of more than $20 billion.

Citigroup has been one of the hardest-hit financial companies in the ongoing financial crisis. It is currently laying off workers - nearly 23,000 in the first nine months of 2008 - and seeks to sell off about 20 percent of its assets.