Getting your player ready...
NEW YORK — John S. Reed, who helped engineer the 1998 merger that created Citigroup Inc., apologized for his role in building a company that has taken $45 billion in direct U.S. aid and said banks that big should be split into separate parts.
“I’m sorry,” Reed, 70, said in an interview Thursday. “These are people I love and care about. You could imagine emotionally it’s not easy to see what’s happened.”
The company lost $27.7 billion in 2008 and took $118 billion in writedowns. It is now 34 percent owned by the Treasury Department.
