Let's See If Citi Runs Again, Shall We

The fourth leg of the trifecta squeeze just came out (to everyone's total lack of surprise): Citi chairman Dick Parsons said "Citigroup does not need any more capital injections from the government and that the bank would remain in private hands." Demonstrating a keen sense of humor, in an interview with Reuters Dick had this to say:

"I think actually, particularly with the latest conversion... Citi is actually one of the better capitalized banks in the world."

Seeing how Citi has received over $45 billion in taxpayer cash and 3 bailouts since October it would be a shame if Citi was one of the worse capitalized banks in the world. Reuters further claims that the regulators have recently begun work on a contingency plan to stabilize Citigroup if problems mount, but no imminent rescue was planned according to an anonymous person familiar with the plan B preparations.

As the three big bad banks are apparently big fans of Douglas Adams, we expect part 5 of the trifecta to surface tomorrow when Citi's janitor provides his resounding endorsements of the non-nationalizeable nature of the financial conglomerate, and the short squeeze hits 1,500 on the S&P. In the meantime, for your amusement, with Bloomerg's kind generosity, we provide the transcript of the update conference call Lehman held on September 10, 4 days before it filed for bankruptcy and particularly draw your attention to where Dick Fuld says "Today's strategic actions, each of which is significant in its own right, taken together as a whole, significantly reduces our remaining risk and greatly improves our ability to create value for our shareholders." Good stuff.

(Disclaimer: Zero Hedge is, to its own dismay, long Citi stock. )

Lehman Transcript

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