Citi (C) May Retain Stake in CitiFinancial

Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) there's a possibility they may retain a minority stake in its CitiFinancial as the seek bidders for the consumer finance business, which they are offering to partially finance.

The bidders, a handful of groups consisting of more than 10 private equity firms, will need to come up with several billion dollars of financing to take over about $13 billion of CitiFinancial assets, sources said.

Citigroup is offering asset-backed securitization, and other banks could provide such financing as well, sources said.

But that would still leave a large funding gap that will have to be financed through other means such as term loans and high-yield debt, the sources said.

Citigroup was trading at $4.61, up $0.09, or 1.99 percent, as of 12:51 PM EST.




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