NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc is paying about $13 million to compensate employees who had been expected to go on various trips that were later canceled, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.
The bank is paying 1,900 employees of its Primerica Financial Services unit $5,000 each, after canceling a February trip for top agents to a Bahamas resort, according to the person, who declined to be named because the information is not public.
CITIGROUP (C.NY)also awarded employees of its Smith Barney unit $3.5 million of debit cards in lieu of trips, the person said.
Banks that received taxpayer money have been slashing expenses for events and perks amid growing criticism from politicians about costs they deem wasteful.
Some banks have argued that eliminating certain expenses hurts morale and can put them at a competitive disadvantage.
"During this difficult environment, we have deeply cut employee recognition-based costs, in some instances by 80 percent," Citigroup said in a statement. "We need to reward, retain and develop the best employees of these profitable Citi businesses. In the instance of Primerica, we we're legally obligated to do so."
The New York-based bank lost $27.7 billion in the 15 months ended December 31 and got $45 billion from the taxpayer-funded Troubled Asset Relief Program. Last month, it agreed to give the government up to a 36 percent equity stake in the company.
Citigroup has put Primerica into Citi Holdings, a group of non-core businesses and assets that it hopes to sell or otherwise pare down. The bank is merging Smith Barney with the brokerage business of Morgan Stanley
Citigroup shares were up 1 cent to $1.04 in afternoon trading.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
