Citigroup Surges as Fraser’s Overhaul Yields 42% Profit Growth

Three banks, three dovetailing and diverging narratives. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, three of America’s biggest lenders, reported first-quarter results Tuesday, with a resilient US economy boosting profits across the board. One stood out for all the right reasons.

A Tale of Three Lenders

First, there’s the perfectly solid. Revenue at JPMorgan Chase, the largest US bank, rose 10% year-over-year to $49.8 billion, and net profit rose 13% to $16.5 billion, both beating analysts’ expectations. JPMorgan’s traders were the stars of the show, posting a 20% gain in stock-trading results for a record quarterly haul of $11.6 billion. 

Next, there’s the equivocal. Revenue at Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest US bank, grew 6% from a year ago to $21.45 billion, while profit climbed 7% to $5.25 billion. Unfortunately, that revenue figure amounted to an outright miss, sending the bank’s shares tumbling 5.5%. On the plus side, Wells Fargo beefed up its loan book by 11%, pushing it over the $1 trillion mark for the first time since 2020, in a sign that executives are positioning the bank for growth after it was freed from seven years of a regulator-imposed, $1.95 trillion asset cap last year. Wells’ traders also had a party of a quarter, raking in $2.2 billion for a 19% year-over-year gain. 

Finally, there’s the showstopper. The most dramatic earnings report Tuesday was from Citigroup, where net income soared 42% to $5.8 billion in the first quarter. Revenue at the third-largest lender climbed 14% to $24.6 billion, not too shabby either. Both beat estimates, and yes, the traders did great, like everywhere else. Citi’s fixed-income unit earned $5.2 billion, up 13% from last year, and in the equities business, revenue climbed $39% to $2.1 billion for the best quarter since the financial crisis. 

Citi’s breakout, meanwhile, has its own unique backdrop: 

• The bank is emerging from a period of adversity: For years, it has trailed JPMorgan in profitability and efficiency. Regulators fined the bank $400 million in 2020 for poor risk management and data governance, and another $135 million in 2024 for not fixing the issues fast enough. 
• But CEO Jane Fraser, who took over in 2021, won plaudits for pushing through a multi-year reordering that simplified the bank’s once-sprawling global structure into five core businesses. Tuesday’s results suggest it’s working.

Raider Rewards: A turnaround takes talent, of course, in addition to reordering. Fraser has arguably been Wall Street’s most persuasive poacher in the past two years. Citi has lured more than a dozen senior managing directors from rivals including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, among them Viswas Raghavan, who joined from JPMorgan in 2024 to lead investment banking.