Citigroup is lowering its fourth-quarter and full-year financial results after discovering fraud at a Mexican subsidiary. The bank on Friday said that it had extended credit to Mexican oil services company Oceanografia through its Banco Nacional de Mexico unit, also known as Banamex. Oceanografia has been a key supplier to Mexican state-owned oil company Petr?leos Mexicanos. Citigroup said it found out earlier this month that Oceanografia had been suspended from receiving new Mexican government contracts. Citi and Petr?leos Mexicanos then reviewed their exposure to Oceanografia. Petr?leos said that it found fraud in the accounts receivables recorded by Banamex. Citigroup says its 2013 net income will be reduced to $13.7 billion from $13.9 billion. It believes the fraud is an isolated incident. Citigroup?s stock fell slightly in premarket trading.
IAG posts consensus-beating profit in 2013
International Airlines Group reported consensus-beating annual profits on a strong performance from British Airways and its low-cost Spain-based carrier Vueling on Friday, and said it was on track to meet its 2015 targets. The company, which also owns the Spain-based Iberia airline, posted operating profit before exceptional items of 770 million euros in the twelve months to December 31, swinging into profit from the 23 million euros loss it made last year and ahead of an analyst consensus forecast of 765 million euros.
Russia?s Gazprom Neft 2013 net profit up 1% y-o-y
Gazprom Neft, an oil arm of Russian gas company Gazprom, posted 177.9 billion roubles ($5 billion) in 2013 net profit, up 1% year-on-year. In 2012, Gazprom Neft saw net profit at 176.3 billion roubles. The company said in a statement on Friday its revenues were down 1% to 1.5 trillion roubles last year.
Bayer boosts peak sales estimate for top 5 new drugs
Germany?s largest drugmaker Bayer lifted its estimate for potential sales of new drugs by billions of euros on Friday, softening the blow of a fall in fourth-quarter earnings. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the last three months of 2013 slipped to 1.77 billion euros, dampened by a weak Japanese yen and emerging-market currencies, the company said, missing the 1.91 billion euro average estimate in a Reuters poll. But Bayer also boosted its estimate of the peak sales potential of its five most important new drugs to at least 7.5 billion euros, from more than 5.5 billion euros previously. The German group said it expected 2014 adjusted Ebitda to grow by a low to mid-single-digit percentage and that full-year sales would be 41-42 billion euros.
?US Fed should halt major asset buys when feasible?
The US central bank should halt its large-scale asset purchases as soon as circumstances make it possible to do so, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank president Richard Fisher said on Friday. ?As soon as feasible, the Federal Reserve should stop large scale asset purchases entirely,? Fisher said in a speech in Zurich, adding that purchases risk complicating future monetary policy. Fisher, who has a vote on the Fed?s policy panel this year, is one of the most outspoken opponents of the current round of bond buying, which has swollen the Fed?s balance sheet to more than $4 trillion. Fisher repeated that he was happy with the current pace of trimming stimulus. Fisher said even in the case of a stock market correction, he would not flinch from continuing to support reducing the size of the Fed?s asset purchases, as long as the economy was growing and unemployment falling.
Hutchison Whampoa?s 2013 net profit up 20%
Hutchison Whampoa, Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing?s ports-to-telecoms conglomerate, reported a 20% increase in 2013 net profit. Hutchison?s full-year net profit totalled HK$31.11 billion ($4.01 billion), up from a revised HK$25.9 billion a year earlier, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday. The company, with businesses spanning commercial properties in Hong Kong and China to telecommunications in Europe and energy in Canada, was forecast to report a net profit of HK$29.92 billion for 2013, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The group is continuing to assess its strategic options to maximise the value and growth potential of its retail division, Hutchison said in the statement.
