Citigroup Inc. was the largest company in the world in December, 2007. It had total assets of $2.2 trillion. Citigroup Inc. was formed on October 8, 1998 when Citicorp and the Traveler’s Group merged. By 2008, it was the world’s largest bank by revenues with over 358,000 staff and 200 million customer accounts in 100 countries. The Citicorp piece is a multinational banking corporation which operates in more than 100 countries. Travelers Group businesses include credit services, consumer finance, brokerage, and insurance (Wikipedia 2008).
Citicorp was originally known as the Bank of New York. It was established on September 14th, 1812. The first acting president was Samuel Osgood. By 1895 Citicorp became the largest American bank and soon thereafter became known as an innovator in financial services. By the mid 1970’s, under the command of CEO Walter Writston, Citicorp started issuing Citicards which was the start of the 24 hour ATM. By the early 1980’s Citicorp expanded and started offering credit cards. They soon regained their title as the largest bank and adding the largest issuer of credit cards and charge cards in the world (Wikipedia 2008).
Travelers Group began as Commercial Credit which was a subsidiary of Control Data Systems. The company then bought out the conglomerate, Primerica, taking its name and began using a cross-selling strategy where each branch would sell each other’s services. In 1992, Primerica and Travelers Insurance formed a strategic alliance which then became Travelers Inc. primarily selling insurances. In the mid-90’s, Travelers merged with Aetna Property and Casualty, Inc and then with Salomon Brothers, a major bond trader and investment bank (Wikipedia 2008).
In November 2007, the housing market in the United States ...