Fed Pushes Citi, BofA to Increase Capital

By DAN FITZPATRICK, DAVID ENRICH and DAMIAN PALETTA Regulators have told Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. that the banks may need to raise more capital based on early results of the government's so-called stress tests of lenders, according to people familiar with the situation. The capital shortfall amounts to billions of dollars at Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., people familiar with the bank said. Executives at both banks are objecting to the preliminary findings, which emerged from the government's scrutiny of 19 large financial institutions. The two banks are planning to respond with detailed rebuttals, these people said, with Bank of America's appeal expected by Tuesday. The findings suggest that government officials are using the stress tests to send a tough message to struggling banks. Bank of America and Citigroup have been the highest-profile problem children in recent months, but it is unlikely that they are the only banks the Federal Reserve has determined might need more capital. Industry analysts and investors predict that some regional banks, especially those with big portfolios of commercial real-estate loans, likely fared poorly on the stress tests. Analysts consider Regions Financial Corp., Fifth Third Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co. to be among the leading contenders for more capital. Wells Fargo declined to comment. Representatives of Regions and Fifth Third didn't respond to requests for comment made late in the day. Government officials say their meetings about the stress tests with bank executives over the past few days conveyed preliminary results and that discussions were expected to continue this week about specific findings. They also say that banks directed to raise more capital shouldn't be viewed as insolvent. Instead, the capital is intended to cushion the banks against potential future losses under dire economic conditions. Federal officials say they won't allow any of the top 19 banks to fail. Still, it is unclear how flexible the government will be about adjusting the results, especially as banks plead their cases individually. Banks have until the middle of this week to lodge their formal responses to the tests. Bankers expect that will set the stage for several days of intense negotiations between the banks and their examiners. While the Fed initially planned to release the results of the stress tests on May 4, the government says the results will be released sometime that week. Banks that are deemed to need more capital will have six months to find it, either from private investors, other financial institutions or the U.S. government. Bank of America and Citigroup have required a total of $95 billion in taxpayer infusions, and the government has agreed to protect the banks against most losses on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets. Capital Hole Bank of America's capital hole as measured by the regulators is in the billions, said people close to the company, placing added pressure on management as the company prepares for a Wednesday shareholder meeting in Charlotte. It isn't clear how big a capital deficit Citigroup faces. At meetings Friday at the New York Fed's fortress-like headquarters near Wall Street, government examiners informed Citigroup executives that the preliminary stress-test results indicated the company needed more capital, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesman for Citigroup declined to comment. Associated Press Traffic passes a Bank of America branch in New York ' s Times Square. Bank of America has already taken $45 billion in capital from the federal government, some of it to help the bank cover losses stemming from its purchase of securities firm Merrill Lynch & Co. If the bank is forced to bolster its capital, it could do so in one of several ways, including selling assets, selling more shares to the public or converting the government's preferred shares into common stock. That would boost the company's capital on paper but could also leave the U.S. government as Bank of America's largest shareholder while diluting the value of the stock held by existing shareholders. Near Impossibility Raising capital in the current environment is nearly impossible for troubled financial institutions. Skittish investors are wary of plowing money into banks that still face potentially large losses. But institutions perceived as healthy have had some success luring investors. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. earlier this month sold $5 billion of its shares, and plans to use the funds to repay the government's capital infusion. Northern Trust Corp. said Monday that it plans to sell $750 million of common stock in a public offering. Like Goldman, Northern Trust said the proceeds will help it close out the U.S. investment in the Chicago-based company. Citigroup wants to get credit for its recent efforts to shrink its balance sheet by selling businesses such as Smith Barney and its Japanese brokerage arm, say people familiar with the matter. While those deals haven't yet been completed, they're expected to ultimately give a significant boost to Citigroup's capital levels. In addition, Citigroup executives have concerns about some of the assumptions the Fed used in calculating the timing and severity of future losses on consumer loans such as credit cards, according to one person familiar with the matter. The preliminary test results added to frustration that already had been building at Citigroup as the government conducted its stress tests over the past two months. 'A Million Questions' During that process, executives have griped that examiners were demanding detailed information from every corner of the sprawling organization, consuming thousands of man-hours without briefing anyone on what the government was looking for, according to people familiar with the matter. The regulators are asking "a million questions" and it's "very unclear what they're aiming at," one senior executive said earlier this month. "We can't discern a pattern." Some bank executives have said that even after meeting with Fed examiners on Friday, they still don't understand details of the government's methodology for conducting the tests. A spokeswoman for the Fed declined to comment on the stress tests. Revenue Projections One question is how the government is projecting banks' revenue streams through 2010. Some bankers are optimistic that the Fed will use their first-quarter numbers to predict their performance for the next two years. That could inflate the banks' earning potentials -- and thus their capital cushions -- because many of the companies had strong first-quarter performances. Analysts, investors and most executives say those results probably aren't sustainable. Write to Dan Fitzpatrick at dan.fitzpatrick@wsj.com, David Enrich at david.enrich@wsj.com and Damian Paletta at damian.paletta@wsj.com