Citigroup Sees Growth as Spanish Companies Tap Bond Markets: Profit in Spain is up to 10-fold since 1990

Citigroup Inc. (C) is counting on fees from managing bond sales and share offerings to drive revenue in Spain after selling dozens of branches in the country as part of a wider retreat from consumer banking.

The bank expects its revenue in Spain to increase five to 10 percent in 2015, Country Officer William Van Dyke said in an interview. Spain is one of the five biggest sources of income for New York-based Citigroup within Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a spokesman for the bank, which gets more of its revenue outside its home market than any other U.S. lender. It doesn’t provide a breakdown by country.

“Large market capitalization companies always had access to capital markets, but medium-sized ones and companies with lower than investment grade rating needed access, and this has started to change in recent years,” he said. “Equities will also have a good year in 2015, mainly through capital increases and accelerated equity offers.”

Citigroup is pulling back from consumer banking in slow-growth markets as Chief Executive OfficerMichael Corbat, who took over from Vikram Pandit two years ago, carries on with plans to streamline the bank, the world’s largest lender before the 2008 financial crisis. Van Dyke said the bank expects to build its business in Spain as the country recovers from a two-year recession and a sovereign debt crisis that led the government to seek aid from the European Union to recapitalize local lenders.

While Germany, France and Italy have struggled to rebound from the euro area’s slump, the currency bloc’s fourth-largest economy has grown for five straight quarters, an expansion that Van Dyke said is supporting Citigroup’s investment banking and private banking activities in Spain.