Citigroup Inc. was the largest company in the world as of December 2007. Its total assets were $2.2 trillion. Citigroup Inc. was formed on October 8, 1998 through the merger of Citicorp and Traveler's Group. In 2008, it was the world's largest bank by revenue, with more than 358,000 employees and 200 million customer accounts in 100 countries. The Citicorp coin is a multinational banking company that operates in over 100 countries. Travelers Group's businesses include credit services, consumer finance, brokerage and insurance (Wikipedia 2008). Citicorp was originally known as the Bank of New York. It was established on September 14, 1812. The first acting president was Samuel Osgood. By 1895, Citicorp became America's largest bank and soon after became known as an innovator in financial services. In the mid-1970s, under the leadership of CEO Walter Writston, Citicorp began issuing Citicard cards, which marked the beginning of the 24-hour ATM. In the early 1980s, Citicorp expanded and started offering credit cards. They quickly regained their title as the largest bank and added the largest credit card and charge card issuer in the world (Wikipedia 2008). Travelers Group began as Commercial Credit, a subsidiary of Control Data Systems. The company then purchased the Primerica conglomerate, taking its name, and began using a cross-selling strategy in which each branch sold the services of the other. In 1992, Primerica and Travelers Insurance formed a strategic alliance which later became Travelers Inc., primarily selling insurance. In the mid-1990s, Travelers merged with Aetna Property and Casualty, Inc, and then with Salomon Brothers, a major investment bank and bond trading company (Wikipedia 2008). In November 2007, the U.S. housing market began to take a downward turn. . With defaults increasing, loans on Citigroup's books were overdue for revaluation. Due to the decline in the housing market and reductions in consumer spending, Citigroup said it expected to record a loss of between $6 million and $11 million. Citigroup shares fell. (Reference)For the year ending December 31, 2007, Citigroup experienced a significant decline in net income. In 2006, Citigroup ended the year with a net profit of over $21 billion. By 2007, their net income had fallen to just over $3 billion. (Reference) Problems continued in the first quarter of 2008, when Citigroup was unable to sell home equity loans and began cutting jobs in its mortgage division..