GIC held over 9 pct of Citigroup prior to stake sale * Now has below 5 pct; will stay on as “portfolio investor” * GIC says realised $1.6 bln profit from sale * Citigroup shares up in premarket trade By Kevin Lim and Saeed Azhar SINGAPORE, Sept 22 - Singapore wealth fund GIC has halved its stake in Citigroup <C.N>, cashing in on a market rally for a profit of $1.6 billion, but signalling investor concerns over the outlook for global banks. The sale follows other divestments by sovereign funds from Western banks they helped rescue at the start of the financial crisis to use the money closer to home in emerging markets and in other growth sectors such as resources. In June, Abu Dhabi exited Barclays Plc <BARC.L> with a gain of about 1.5 billion pounds , though Temasek [TEM.UL], another Singapore wealth fund, lost an estimated $4 billion from an early exit from Bank of ...

• This morning’s reports say the Government of Singapore Investment Corp has reduced its stake in Citigroup (NYSE:C) to less than 5% through open market sales

• The CEO of Cadbury (NYSE:CBY) noted "complementary elements" of Kraft (NYSE:KFT) and Cadbury, but said he would still advise rejecting the deal at the current $16 billion bid

• Oracle's (NASDAQ:ORCL) CEO noted dangers of the European regulatory delay of its proposed $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:JAVA), saying Sun Micro is currently losing about $100 million a month

• AMR (NYSE:AMR) announced a 30 million common and $250 million convertible senior notes offering

• Louisiana-Pacific (NYSE:LPX) said it is planning a public offering of 18 million shares of its common stock

• TJX (NYSE:TJX) said its board approved a $1 billion share buyback, reflecting 6.2% of the company's outstanding shares

• Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing search engine managed to grab more share from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), reaching 9.3% of

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Singapore’s GIC sees more distress in markets

Tue Mar 10, 2009 2:35am EDT

By Kevin Lim and Saeed Azhar

SINGAPORE, March 10 (Reuters) - An official from the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) said he expects more weakness in financial markets in the next 12-18 months, and recommended investors hold gold and other safe assets such as government bonds.

GIC, one of the world’s largest sovereign funds with an estimated $200 billion-plus in assets, has invested aggressively in troubled global lenders, picking up multi-billion dollar stakes in Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and UBS (UBSN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in late 2007 and early 2008.

There is “systemic capital inadequacy globally”, and the world will probably see “three years of a very vicious downcycle,” GIC’s director of economics and strategy, Yeoh Lam Keong, told the Investment Management Association of Singapore conference

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Highlights include Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), U.S. Bancorp (USB), PNC Financial Services Group (PNC) and Wells Fargo (WFC).Citigroup Reconfigures Equity Component, But with Significant DilutionEarlier today Citigroup (C) announced it will offer to convert into common shares approximately  $27.5 billion of its preferred stock sold to public and private investors, and up to $25.0 billion in preferred stock bought by the U.S. government. The U.S. government would have approximately a 36% stake in Citigroup, while existing shareholders would be cut to a 26% stake, if fully executed.The bank is suspending its payment of dividends on preferred stock. And though the common shareholders have to approve the deal, they do not have much choice, as Citigroup will issue securities to preferred shareholders who agree to the swap that let them buy common stock for a penny ...

Monday February 23, 2009
Navivest

Citigroup (C) is reportedly in talks with the government, to have the government bump its ownership of the bank up to 40%, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to the newspaper, if the government does end up upping its stake, it won’t come at a cost to taxpayers. Instead, current shareholders will suffer losses, as their holdings would get diluted.

To be able to complete such a deal, Citigroup may have to convince some of its stockholders such as the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Kuwait Investment Authority, who have preferred shares of the company, to convert some of their preferred shares into common stock.

Interestingly enough, Citigroup shares, as well as stock market futures are up in after hours trading on the news after stocks took a beating last week, on concerns that the government might start nationalizing banks.

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In our November 19 post, we said we are monitoring five key dimensions on ten key asset categories to gauge when, how and how much to commit the cash we raised in the summer to the markets in the future.

1. Technical Market Factors 2. Valuation Fundamentals 3. Risk Levels 4. Government Intervention Policies 5. Economic Conditions

Ten Key Asset Categories Relative Performance Since Oct 1:

click image to enlarge

Headlines Re - Government Policies and Economic Conditions:

The headlines in the financial press over the last 24 hours, clearly show that our 4th and 5th monitoring dimensions are not near to being settled enough to risk cash. Consider this headlines sample:

Nov 19 (Financial Times) — Junk bond yields spike — Average yields on US junk bonds have topped 20 per cent for the first time amid rising concerns about a protracted

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