Report: Citi blocks hedge fund withdrawals

Fund specializing in corporate debt had investors trying to take out more than 30% of its $500 million in assets, newspaper says.

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Trouble in the credit markets might make this a good time to get into municipal bonds.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Citigroup is blocking investors from withdrawing their money from a hedge fund specializing in government debt after a near run on its assets, according to a published report.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) made the move to bar withdrawals from its CSO Partners fund after investors attempted to pull out more than 30% of the fund's roughly $500 million in assets.

The fund posted an 11% loss last year, according to the paper. The paper reports that in an effort to stabilize the fund last month Citigroup injected $100 million.

The paper also reports that alternative investment products such as hedge funds are a relatively small business for Citigroup, which has about $2.4 trillion in assets. But it's another unneeded problem for Citi as it tries to shake off losses from other investments, primarily those tied to subprime mortgages.

A month ago it reported a record $10 billion loss in the fourth quarter after it was forced to take an $18 billion writedown. The loss led to the departure of Chairman and CEO Charles Prince. His replacement, Vikram Pandit, had been a hedge fund manager who briefly ran the alternative-investments group at Citi.

Shares of Dow component Citigroup lost 1.1% in early Frankfurt trading Friday on the report. To top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.