11/5/2007: Citigroup's CFO talks about "accounting" losses

Excerpt from Citigroup's November conference call reports that C’s cash flows from their MBS’s have not been impaired

Gary Crittenden, Citigroup CFO: [A]t the end of the day, it is about cash. And we have had an accounting hit associated with these securities which I think is .. the appropriate thing from an accounting perspective. But you know a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, the real question is going to be how much cash do we receive from these securities? And the securities that we actually hold have not yet been downgraded. The cash flows actually have not yet been impaired. That is likely or possibly will change over the next little while but at this point that is not the case. And so I think to think about selling these at distressed values just wouldn't make any sense for us whatsoever. We are I think at the end of the day going to find that the cash flow here represents the fact that these are higher-quality securities. They are in fact and were up until very recently thought of as super senior securities above AAA in terms of their quality.

Sabaziotatos says:

In their 10-K from 2/22/2008 Citigroup continues to describe their losses on subprime-related direct exposures as “unrealized”.