Citigroup Inc. banned off-site meetings among investment banking employees and cut back on color photocopying to reduce expenses as revenue declines.
Executives in Citi's trading and investment banking unit will need to ensure spending is "highly efficient," according to an internal memorandum confirmed Tuesday by a Citigroup spokesman in London.
Citigroup is clamping down on spending after cutting about 14,000 jobs in the first half of 2008 and reporting $55 billion of writedowns and credit losses in the past year, more than any other bank, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Revenue at the New York company's corporate and investment bank plunged 71% in the second quarter on losses for subprime-related assets.
Under the new policy, employee meetings must be held within Citigroup offices and client events will require approval, the memo said. Color photocopiers will be removed from some locations and their use will be limited to client presentations.
The memo did not say how much money the new rules will save.
"We have spent considerable time looking at our headcount and related expense, and while we have made progress in that area, we still have more work to do," the memo said.
Citigroup is also scaling back external training, which will be done only when "strictly necessary," the memo said. The U.K.'s Daily Telegraph reported the contents of the memo earlier Tuesday.
