CITIGROUP

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Thursday following the previous session's sharp losses, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.21 percent and Dow Jones futures down 0.24 percent, while Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.08 percent at 0941 GMT (5:41 a.m. ET).

Citigroup Inc said a cyber attack in May affected almost twice as many people as the bank's figures had initially suggested, as major U.S. lenders come under growing pressure from lawmakers to improve account security.

Blackstone Group LP was sued for allegedly siphoning $2.1 billion from Extended Stay America Inc when it sold the hotel chain in a leveraged buyout that preceded its bankruptcy, according to court documents.

Citigroup Inc is in the early stages of looking for about 1 million square feet of office space in Manhattan and considering space at the World Trade Center site and at the Hudson Yards, according to two people familiar with the matter.

JPMorgan Chase & Co has pushed out its head of home lending, David Lowman, who was sidelined in February after the bank racked up billions of dollars in losses on soured mortgages and became mired in litigation over a wave of foreclosures.

Stock index futures rose on Tuesday after economic data out of China drew investors into an equities market that had become oversold from a technical perspective after six weeks of sharp declines.

President Barack Obama is redoubling his efforts to curry favor with the financial industry, a bastion of support for his 2008 campaign whose members have criticized the president's rhetoric and support for increased regulation.

Regions Financial Corp's board is investigating if executives delayed public disclosure of loans that were going bad during the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Citigroup will close its Japan office for Citi Venture Capital International as the high-growth focused fund management firm has failed to find any attractive investments, two people with direct knowledge of the closure said.

The Federal Reserve has become the largest Treasury holder in the world in Q1 2011 at $1.34 trillion.

Sony, Google, the FBI, Lockheed Martin, Citigroup, and now the International Monetary Fund (IM) -- the tentacles of cyber criminals are not sparing any big ticket organisation in the world. The infiltration might have involved significant reconnaissance prior to the attack, and code may have been written specifically to penetrate the the Fund, according to a former cybersecurity specialist at the World Bank.

EU countries agreed on Friday on tougher sanctions against people conducting cyber attacks such as those registered in recent weeks against the French government, European institutions and Citigroup.

The cyber attack on Citigroup Inc may force U.S. banks to adopt tougher security measures that they have put off for years because of the cost and fears that tighter security would inconvenience customers.

Citibank’s online account site has been hacked and credit card information of their customers and around 200,000 account information have been stolen.

Ally Financial, an auto and mortgage lender majority owned by the U.S. government, is delaying a $6 billion IPO due to bad market conditions, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Ally Financial, the auto and mortgage lender majority-owned by the U.S. government, is delaying its initial public offering due to bad market conditions, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Citibank becomes the latest victim in the large-scale corporation hacking trend of 2011.

In the past few months, hackers have enjoyed a swelling of fame while their hits have suffered hurt customer credibility and financial loss. Now it's Citibank's turn.

Major U.S. banks came under growing pressure from banking regulators to improve the security of their customer account information after Citigroup Inc became the latest high-profile victim of a large-scale cyber attack.

Research In Motion is in danger of failing to capitalize on market share losses at rival Nokia by choosing to launch products later-than-expected, said Citigroup, which downgraded its rating on the stock to hold from buy.

Citigroup does not know how the computer breach revealed Thursday which affected hundreds of thousands of its credit card customers took place, but such an event fell in line with a risk the company outlined to shareholders in its publicly available annual report in March.