New York - US banking giant Citigroup reported Friday it suffered a net loss of 5.11 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2008 after having to write down 12 billion dollars' worth
of loans and bonds in the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.

The first-quarter red ink compares with a profit of just over 5 billion dollars in the same 2007 period and was somewhat higher than analysts' projections, according to the
Bloomberg financial agency.

The losses came on revenues of 13.2 billion dollars. While this was down 48 per cent from the first quarter of 2007, it was some 2 billion dollars higher than projections given
in a survey of analysts by Bloomberg.

Citigroup became the latest among major US financial institutions this week to report first-quarter problems in the further fallout from the mortgage crisis and US economic
slump.

On Thursday, Merrill Lynch reported a net loss of 1.96 billion dollars after nearly 7 billion dollars uin writedowns.

On Tuesday, Washington Mutural reported losing 1.1 billion dollars in the quarter, while a day before that, Wachovia Corp. posted a loss of 350 million dollars.

JPMorgan Chase on Wednesday reported net earnings of 2.37 billion dollars, but this figure was down about one-half from the year- earlier results. (dpa)