When Lehman Brothers imploded almost 10 years ago, few Wall Street banks were worse placed to withstand the fallout than Citigroup. While most of its rivals had delivered bumper profits in 2007, Citi had already seen its earnings collapse to $3.6bn from $21.5bn after its subprime bets went badly wrong.
Yet, a decade on from the crisis that threatened such devastation, Citi’s investment bank chief James Forese can say without irony: “I don’t think there is much question that we’ve been a winner since the crisis. Even from the [high] of the 2005/06 period to today?.?.?.?our franchise is much stronger today than it was back then.”
Mr Forese is not the only one of his peers enjoying the unlikely resurgence of investment banking a decade after the crisis. Indeed, data collected by the Financial Times show that group-wide profits last year of $78.4bn across the top nine investment banks — excluding the much-changed Bank of America — were higher than the $75.4bn recorded in 2007. Industry profits in dollar terms are back to pre-crisis levels.