Parmalat cost Citigroup $242m

The world's biggest bank said profits for the final three months of 2003 came in at $4.7bn (�2.6bn), double the figure recorded one year earlier.

Citigroup said it had taken a $242m charge to cover its unsecured loans to Parmalat, which went bust last month.

The bank said its secured loans to Parmalat amount to a further $302m.

Parmalat was declared insolvent on 27 December, days after it emerged that 4 billion euros in assets that the company claimed to have in reserve did not in fact exist.

Economic boost

The affair, seen as a Europe's version of the Enron scandal in the US, is still being investigated by the authorities in Italy and several other countries where Parmalat was active.

Other global banks caught up in the Parmalat meltdown include Bank of America, Barclays, and ABN Amro.

The Parmalat affair was partly responsible for a 12% decline in profits at Citigroup International, responsible for the bank's activities outside its core US market.

But all of the bank's other divisions recorded solid earnings growth, buoyed by a strengthening US economy and a resurgent stock market.

Citigroup sounded an upbeat note for 2004, predicting further expansion amid a sustained improvement in global economic conditions.