Nathan Sheets, Ph.D., is Global Chief Economist at Citi Research. In this role, Nathan leads Citi’s surveillance and forecasting of the global economy and directs the analysis of the firm’s economics team. He interacts closely with Citi’s major institutional clients and internal risk takers, and publishes research on cross-cutting themes shaping the global economy and financial markets.

Nathan Sheets 

Lord King

Lord William Hague 

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Forward by CEO Jane Fraser
In my position as CEO, I have the privilege of running one of the world&rsquo;s most global banks. We move $4 trillion in volume &mdash; equivalent to the GDP of Germany &mdash; for 5,000 of the most important multinational companies, every single day. This represents a constantly innovating network that helps underpin the global financial system and international trade.
With clients operating in nearly 160 countries and jurisdictions, we&rsquo;ve had a front-row seat to the evolution of globalization over the course of our bank&rsquo;s more-than-200-year history. Today, we are witnessing a monumental shift towards another new era &mdash; and trade and supply chains are at the heart of these changes.
A year ago, Citi published a comprehensive Citi GPS report examining global supply chains, and many of those elements, especially those focused on geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges, still ring true today. For the last several decades, there was a strong emphasis on sourcing and moving manufactured goods as efficiently as possible to cut costs. But the geopolitical and macroeconomic shocks of late have upended this approach, and we&rsquo;re now reaching a critical tipping point.
This latest report, published by Citi experts leading our thinking on the evolution of global supply chains and backed by survey responses from the world&rsquo;s most complex multinationals and SMEs around the world, highlights the profound challenges many corporates are actively navigating.
Today, amidst the backdrop of transformative technological innovations, increasing resilience is the clear and resounding call. We see nearly every country and company focused on security &mdash; be it food, water, energy, cyber, financial, or operational security. And consequently, they&rsquo;re reconfiguring supply chains to meet the demands of customers and other stakeholders. It took too long but we&rsquo;ve all woken up to the fact that concentrating the sourcing or production of any good &mdash; let alone essential goods &mdash; in one part of the world can have dire consequences.
This heightened focus on resilience has given birth to a new era of diversification, and as businesses and countries adapt to this era, we&rsquo;re starting to see clear benefits in economic growth.&nbsp;
<ul>
<li style="font-size: 16px;">First, as demand for resilience and diversity grows, so too does the opportunity for smaller players to engage in global trade. That includes last-mile suppliers in developing countries.</li>
<li style="font-size: 16px;">Second, increased focus on resilience and investments in supply chains are creating diversified economies. Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are early examples of this in the Indo-Pacific. Elsewhere, in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others are undergoing their own transformations as they look to diversify from oil. We&rsquo;re also seeing countries and companies diversifying their supply chains in specific sectors. This is particularly evident in Mexico as a result of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Citi has been supporting clients seeking to reduce risk and increase efficiencies through nearshoring in Mexico. In some cases, it&rsquo;s North America-based automakers bringing supply chains closer to home. In other cases, it&rsquo;s European and Asian companies moving closer to their end-consumers in North America.</li>
<li style="font-size: 16px;">Third, diversification is creating new trade corridors. Brazil is trading more with India and China than it is with Argentina. The Middle East is now more connected to Asia than Europe. And those connections will be further strengthened by a proposed economic corridor connecting the Middle East to India. Nearly 30% of multinationals surveyed for this year&rsquo;s report indicated they were pursuing a &ldquo;China Plus One&rdquo; strategy as they build more resilience, with Vietnam and Thailand being the primary countries named for expansion plans.</li>
</ul>
As the old system continues to be disrupted, the new era of diversification will evolve to meet new demands. But we should be clear-eyed that these changes won&rsquo;t happen overnight. Any significant movement, especially deeper in supply chains, is much easier said than done. Supply chains and trade relationships take years to build. And in some cases, it will take a decade for new players to achieve the scale and manufacturing quality that traditional production hubs developed over the last half-century.
Still, the demand to make these new connections and foster new relationships is palpable. And we anticipate the movement will continue to gain more and more momentum in the years to come.
We are far from the end of globalization, but it is changing. And with those changes, we&rsquo;re seeing tremendous opportunities for all our economies to work together to tackle the unique challenges of the 21st century.
Resilience doesn&rsquo;t mean retreating to our corners. In some sectors, national security requires us increasing our domestic production capabilities. But excessive self-reliance, in the name of national security, won&rsquo;t make us more secure. True resilience comes from open markets and robust and diversified supply chains. A decoupling of the world&rsquo;s dominant economies is neither possible nor prudent. De-risking &mdash; or diversification, as we prefer to call it &mdash; has become the name of the game.
The new era of diversification offers a new way forward for globalization, not a reversing of course. We mustn&rsquo;t lose faith in the tools that have enabled growth and progress over these past decades. And we should be conscious to avoid policies that swing the pendulum too far towards resilience and away from affordability and economic growth. Security and resilience go hand-in-hand in most cases &mdash; and we ought to seek enhancements to both through more global cooperation, not less.

Supply chain woes seen during the pandemic appear to be behind us but geopolitical challenges have intensified and high interest rates and tight credit conditions have caused stress, especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises. In such an environment, companies of all sizes are increasing their focus on financial resiliency, with working capital efficiency a priority for organizations.


Building Resilience as the New Definition of "Global" Emerges

Supply chain woes seen during the pandemic appear to be behind us but geopolitical challenges have intensified and high interest rates and tight credit conditions have caused stress, especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises. In such an environment, companies of all sizes are increasing their focus on financial resiliency, with working capital efficiency a priority for organizations.

The Future of Global Supply Chain Financing

TRANSCRIPT

Citigroup.Inc. (&ldquo;Citi&rdquo;), Career Ready and Progress Together are not affiliated and are independent companies, though Career Ready and Progress Together has a relationship with Citi through Citi Global Insights. The speakers&rsquo; views are their own and may not necessarily reflect the views of Citi or any of its affiliates.
All opinions are subject to change&nbsp;without notice. Neither the information&nbsp;provided&nbsp;nor any opinion expressed constitutes&nbsp;a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. The expressions of opinion&nbsp;are not&nbsp;intended to be a forecast of future events or a guarantee of future results.

Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa is a seasoned social entrepreneur and senior leader with a track record of executing innovative social impact concepts, particularly within the media and youth development sectors. Tokunbo is the current Chief Executive of Career Ready, a UK wide social mobility charity that links employers with schools and colleges to open up the world of work for young people. Tokunbo is a Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs and was a Cabinet Office appointed Social Enterprise Ambassador for three years. In addition, in 1999 Tokunbo was co-founder of the ORIGIN rites of passage programme for young men of African Caribbean descent. In 2020 he founded the Black Unity Bike Ride, which saw 2000 riders cycle across London with the aim of increasing diversity within cycling and also celebrating Black empowerment. Tokunbo joined Career Ready in January 2020, following his role as CEO of the Foyer Federation. He was highly commended at the 2021 Third Sector Awards as a &lsquo;Rising Chief Executive&rsquo; and was shortlisted for CEO of the Year at the 2022 Charity Times Awards. Tokunbo embodies the ethos of Career Ready and our mission to boost social mobility. He grew up in a single-parent family in Leyton, East London and went on to study journalism at University of the Arts, London. Prior to working in the third sector, he enjoyed a successful career in journalism. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his young family, competing in triathlons, listening to 90s hip-hop and watching Liverpool Football Club.

Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa, CEO, Career Ready 

Sophie Hulm is the CEO of Progress Together, a not-for-profit membership body. Progress Together aims to level the playing field for employees from all socio-economic backgrounds, across UK financial services. As Head of Skills Policy at the City of London, Sophie was the founder and architect of a Government commissioned Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce. Sophie sees a clear link between the skills and labour challenges which exist in UK financial services and the need for greater socio-economic diversity at senior levels. Sophie joined Progress Together as Chief Executive in September 2022. Sophie currently sits on the SteerCo for the 30% Club and has led a number of high-profile initiatives including the Lord Mayor&rsquo;s Dragon Awards. Throughout her working life Sophie has focused on the power of business to bring about change, including working for a welfare-to-work organisation, a Corporate Responsibility membership body, and as a trustee for Governors for Schools. Her dad is a working-class East Londoner and her mum a retired academic with immigrant parents. She lives with her partner and two mixed-race children who are big fans of Pokemon and Octonauts.

Sophie Hulm, CEO of Progress Together

Andrew has 30 years&rsquo; experience in the financial services industry and has been at Citi since 1996. He has been in Research management roles for 18 years having previously been a No.1 ranked investment analyst. He is Global Head of Research at Citi and a member of Citi&rsquo;s ICG Management Committee with a broad mandate to coordinate and develop original content across the whole of Citi&rsquo;s Banking and Markets businesses. Andrew is also a co-Chair of the Citi Women affinity network in the UK and a member of various academic Advisory boards, including at Oxford and Cambridge universities. He works with numerous universities, think tanks and research institutes in order to facilitate collaboration between Citi and outside research partners, with many research outputs being produced through Citi&rsquo;s publicly available GPS series which he launched in 2011. Andrew has two degrees from Oxford University and taught as a Lecturer at Keble College, Oxford, before joining the Financial Services industry.
&nbsp;

Andrew Pitt, Global Head of Insights, Citi 

Season 4

Talent is everywhere, but all too often opportunity isn't. The futures of far too many young people are determined by background, not potential. Evidence shows that people born into low-income families do not have access to the same opportunities as those born into privilege, regardless of their skills or hard work.Andrew Pitt, Citi’s Global Head of Insights joins the podcast to talk about the bank’s efforts to help people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds access and climb the career ladder. He explains why a socially diverse workforce makes business sense and the evidenced impact it can have on wider society and GDP.Joining him is Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa, CEO of Career Ready, which connects talented young people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds to a spectrum of different industries and employers, through summer internships. He describes his interns as ‘pioneers’ and reveals the barriers they are overcoming, as they pave the way for future generations.Sophie Hulm, CEO of Progress Together, joins to talk about the importance of collaboration among UK financial services. She explains how data collection is an essential cornerstone for companies to measure mobility. And how diversity of experience and innovation in leadership leads to sound decision making.

/rcs/citigpa/storage/public/Final transcript- Good Things Happen Podcast - Social Mobility.pdf

Good Things Happen, E1: Social Mobility - Breaking Barriers

How solid is commercial real estate? It&rsquo;s a timely question given recent news headlines about problems in the sector.
A recent Citi Research report analyzed potential banking system losses due to commercial real estate exposure and found that even if delinquencies rose to 6%, reserves would be sufficient.
This reassuring message comes with the caveat that markets can become destabilized even if fundamental damage stays contained.
Citi&rsquo;s Global Chief Economist Nathan Sheets notes that large money-centers and regional banks have generally charged off CRE-related debt or set aside allowances on loans expected to sour. Small and mid-tier banks are more exposed to CRE, and many haven&rsquo;t been as aggressive in reserving against such exposures. But Nathan notes that their loans tend to have lower risk attributes.
While office buildings in large urban environments are feeling stress, the prospect is less severe for other types of CRE exposures and in other environments.
Nathan&rsquo;s bottom line: CRE delinquency rates are likely to rise over the next several years, with losses gradually accruing, but the likely level of losses is broadly in line with a normal cyclical downturn, and well below losses seen during the Global Financial Crisis. This differs markedly from media headlines that offer up a more dire characterization of the situation and potential damage to the banking system.
Meanwhile Citi&rsquo;s mortgage-backed security strategist Jeffrey Berenbaum notes that banks in the aggregate have reserved $39 billion, or 1.4% of total CRE loan balances, against potential CRE-related losses. Delinquency rates on office and multifamily bank loans are sitting at 1.5% and 0.4%, respectively. That suggests $5.5 billion of losses if a 50% recovery rate is assumed.
U.S. Bank Assets by Bank sizes as of Q4 2023&nbsp;
<img src="/rcs/v1/media/citigpa/akpublic/storage/retrieveMediaFile/65fc41a8ca93067fe39cbbfd">
&copy; 2024 Citigroup Inc. No redistribution without Citigroup&rsquo;s written permission.
Source: SNL, Citi Research
That said, the report says that a disproportionate amount of the allowances for credit loss resides in the larger banks. Smaller banks that tend to have higher CRE concentrations as a percentage of total assets look to be well behind larger peers in recognizing accruals and write-offs. That suggests more headlines are on the way as such institutions deal with problematic loan maturities.
The report suggests defaults will rise as borrowers struggle to refinance maturing loans. Mortgage coupons have jumped to 6.75% or higher, compared with 4.5% on existing loans, and borrowers must fully pay off commercial mortgages in five to 10 years at maturity since they don&rsquo;t fully amortize like residential ones. Office owners, Jeffrey notes, face declining property income in addition to higher mortgage costs as vacancies rise and rents fall, which makes getting a new mortgage that much more difficult.
But that&rsquo;s not the whole picture, he notes: Lower financing costs will mitigate the magnitude of defaults and losses. Expectations for a Fed cut have helped pull down long-term rates, supporting the lending environment, and rallying capital-market spreads are also lowering borrowing costs.
The report also says that non-bank lenders may play a larger role refinancing maturing loans this year, as banks are generally still tightening standards for CRE loans. Nearly 40% of banks reported tighter lending standards in the latest Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, though that&rsquo;s down from a recent peak north of 70%. Meanwhile, demand for CRE loans remains soft, with 50% of banks reporting weaker demand. But this metric is also easing, having bottomed at nearly 70% in mid-2023. Loan demand, Berenbaum predicts, will pick up as more borrowers reach out to refinance their maturing loans.
A caution in this multifaceted analysis comes from Citi&rsquo;s global macro strategist Dirk Willer, who notes that markets can become destabilizing even if fundamental damage remains relatively contained. Citi Research&rsquo;s view is that the CRE problem is manageable, a headwind for the banking sector but not a crisis. But bank runs can become self-fulfilling, with a lot of damage done by the time authorities step in&mdash;as the events of March 2023 demonstrate. Willer cautions investors that falling stock prices can lead to deposit outflows, which can send stock prices still lower.
But Dirk also sees mitigating factors at work. First off, the issue of office CRE is well understood: Office REITs peaked in February 2020, recovered substantially after the COVID selloff and then collapsed when interest rates started to rise; currently, we&rsquo;re more than 50% below the 2020 peak. While office REITs have underperformed since early 2021, they&rsquo;ve actually outperformed apartment REITs since mid-2023, with the NYCB shock only leading to underperformance of 5%. He notes that while cheap assets can always get cheaper, it&rsquo;s at least clear that this isn&rsquo;t a new problem but something the market has already priced to a significant extent.
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 217.931%; height: 373.9px; margin-right: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: auto; border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255);" border="1"><colgroup><col style="width: 50.9326%;"><col style="width: 49.0587%;"></colgroup>
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<td style="height: 17.9861px; border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-style: solid;"><span style="color: rgb(15, 22, 50); font-family: Citi-Sans-Text-regular; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline;">Office REITs have been falling for a long time</td>
<td style="height: 17.9861px; border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-style: solid;"><span style="color: rgb(15, 22, 50); font-family: Citi-Sans-Text-regular; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline;">&nbsp;Office recently outperformed apartment REITs</td>
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<td style="height: 328.299px; border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><img src="/rcs/v1/media/citigpa/akpublic/storage/retrieveMediaFile/65fc42a1519e1e1718328fbe" width="490" height="304"></td>
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<p class="x-rsch-paragraph CIRCopyright paragraph-with-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2pt 0px; color: rgb(15, 22, 50); font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1; font-family: 'Citi Sans Condensed';">&copy; 2024 Citigroup Inc. No redistribution without Citigroup&rsquo;s written permission.
<p class="x-rsch-paragraph CIRCopyright paragraph-with-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2pt 0px; color: rgb(15, 22, 50); font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1; font-family: 'Citi Sans Condensed';">Source: Citi Research
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<p class="x-rsch-paragraph CIRCopyright paragraph-with-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2pt 0px; color: rgb(15, 22, 50); font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1; font-family: 'Citi Sans Condensed';">&copy; 2024 Citigroup Inc. No redistribution without Citigroup&rsquo;s written permission.
<p class="x-rsch-paragraph CIRCopyright paragraph-with-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2pt 0px; color: rgb(15, 22, 50); font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1; font-family: 'Citi Sans Condensed';">Source: Citi Research
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The other reassuring point, he observes, is that equity markets have behaved very differently than they did during March 2023&rsquo;s bank stresses. And fixed-income markets have also seen the NYCB situation as much more benign. The direction of rates suggests the impact hasn&rsquo;t been seen as sufficient to increase the risk of an earlier policy turn from the Fed, and no stress has been observed in money markets. On the credit side, spreads between the largest U.S. banks and the regional banks jumped in March 2023 and have remained elevated, but they didn&rsquo;t jump further with NYCB. This implies the market consensus is that larger banks&rsquo; credit quality hasn&rsquo;t been significantly impacted so far&mdash;and that&rsquo;s another reassuring sign.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
For more information on this subject, if you are a Velocity subscriber, please see the full report here <a href="https://www.citivelocity.com/t/r/eppublic/306wF" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link-source="tiny">Global Multi-Asset Strategy - CRE: The Three Trillion Dollar Banking Question</a> (22 Feb)
&nbsp;
Citi Global Insights (CGI) is Citi&rsquo;s premier non-independent thought leadership curation. It is not investment research; however, it may contain thematic content previously expressed in an Independent Research report. For the full CGI disclosure, click <a href="https://ir.citi.com/6A3IURUaezPxFLppsgdBkqidjLaLn558JwHISYaDZcTfE9XMRB1isDDDVorqrxpR%2fTnEi4RUCl8%3d" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link-source="tiny">here</a>.

A recent report from Citi Research takes a look at the $3trillion banking question: Do banks &ndash; large and small- provide a sturdy safety net for the ailing commercial real estate sector?

Commercial Real Estate: The Bank Buffer

Economic gaps between Black people and white people in the U.S. persist.&nbsp;Some racial gaps, like the wealth gap, have widened since 2020. Others, such as the racial gap in business ownership, have narrowed<a title="" href="#_ftn1" target="_blank" rel="noopener" name="_ftnref1" data-link-source="tiny">[1]</a>.
Racial gaps continue to be a material headwind to the U.S. economy, impacting Black communities and individuals through unequal access to work, housing, and business ownership.
We update the scenario analysis contained in our 2020 Citi GPS report <a href="https://www.citigroup.com/global/insights/citigps/closing-the-racial-inequality-gaps-20200922" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link-source="tiny">Closing Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S</a>, to estimate the potential size in dollar terms of racial gaps in income, business ownership, and home ownership.
We find that the scale of these three racial gaps could have totaled up to $3.9 trillion between 2020 and 2024, driving the potential cumulative size of the same three racial inequalities since the turn of the millennium to up to $21.3 trillion, which would have been a significant boon for the entire U.S. economy.
The analysis does not account for substitution effects. The economic impact of closing the gaps that we describe will not be entirely additional to current economic productivity. For example, some of the jobs created by closing the racial gap in business ownership are likely to be filled by those leaving other jobs.
Therefore, some of the economic activity generated by closing the racial wealth gap is a substitution for other economic activity. We highlight where such substitutions might occur and underline that our analysis is simply an economic approximation of the scale of three racial gaps&ndash;in business ownership, income and home ownership.
To read the full report,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.citigroup.com/rcs/citigpa/storage/public/Closing-the-Racial-Wealth-Gap-Restating-the-Economic-Case.pdf" data-link-source="tiny">click here.</a>
<div> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%">
<div id="ftn1">
<a target="_blank" name="_Hlk161936286" data-link-source="tiny"></a><a title="" href="#_ftnref1" target="_blank" rel="noopener" name="_ftn1" data-link-source="tiny">[1]</a> We note that the capitalization of &ldquo;black&rdquo; and/or &ldquo;white&rdquo; is the subject of much debate. In this report we have followed the style of the Associated Press Stylebook.
</div>
</div>

Restating the Economic Case

Economic gaps between Black people and white people in the U.S. persist

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap

Welcome to Citi&rsquo;s London Macro Investor Conference.
Throughout the afternoon you will hear multi-dimensional perspectives from distinguished political and economic experts as we explore the market outlook for 2024 and beyond.
After the conference, we invite you to join us at a drinks and canap&eacute; networking reception.
Thank you for participating.

12:30 - 13:30: Lunch and Registration 

13:30 - 14:15: Geopolitical Risks in 2024

14:15 - 15:00: Road to the White House

15:00 - 15:30: Coffee Break

15:30 - 16:15: Global Economic Outlook 

16:15 - 17:00: Beyond the Election: What’s Next for the UK?

17:00 - 19:00: Drinks & Canapé Networking Reception