Citi: Losses "greatly exceeded" Profits from Subprime

Here is an interesting question for the Wall Street firms: Was it worth it? Were the recent losses just a small price to pay for the outsized profits in previous years? Goldman and Deutsche Bank say yes, they made money. Citi says no.

From Bloomberg: Citi's Losses `Greatly Exceeded' Profits for Subprime

Citigroup Inc. ... lost more money than it made from financial instruments based on U.S. subprime mortgages, a senior company executive said in a meeting at the British Parliament.
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``Our losses greatly exceeded the profits we made in this field over several years,'' Mills said at a hearing of the Treasury Committee today.
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Gerald Corrigan, the managing director in charge of risk management at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said that his bank had fared better than Citi.

``On balance, we probably made money,'' Corrigan told lawmakers. ``We have had a measure of success in hedging some of our exposure.''
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Deutsche Bank probably made more money from marketing CDOs than it lost, said Charles Aldington, chairman of its London unit.