The transaction is expected to close before March 31, 2010.

Deal Type    Acquisition
Sub-Category Asset Purchase
Deal Status  Announced: 2009-11-24

Deal Participants

Target (Company)   Citigroup, Inc. - Diners Club North America Credit-Card Business
Acquirer (Company) BMO Financial Group
Vendor (Company)   Citigroup, Inc.

Deal Rationale

Diners' corporate Travel and Entertainment (T&E) expense card program will enhance BMO's own T&E offering in the market and complement the bank's purchasing card (PCard) program. This acquisition will immediately enhance BMO's competitive position by placing it among the commercial card issuers in North America. The acquisition will also allow BMO to partner with other Diners Club franchisees around the globe to deliver better travel and entertainment offering to its multi-national clients.

The transaction, subject to certain closing conditions including regulatory approval, is expected to be completed before the end of the first quarter of 2010.

It includes the award winning Club Rewards programme and the Diners Club Professional Card. Citigroup commits to continue to provide support during the integration of Diners Club within BMO Financial, and the latter to keep key managers responsible for product delivery, sales and customer service.

Via the acquisition, BMO's overall Corporate Card business will more than double immediately. It obtains exclusive rights to issue Diners Club cards to corporate and professional clients in the USA and Canada. Diners' corporate Travel and Entertainment (T&E) expense card programme will expand BMO's own T&E offering and will complement its Purchasing Card (PCard) programme.

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BMO said that that deal will add $7.8 billion in card transactions and net receivables of nearly $1 billion to the company, which will make it more competitive on the North American market.

Citigroup will continue to support operations of Diners Club until the transaction closes at some point before March 31, 2010.

The preceeding is a transcript of the MarketNewsVideo.com video published at: http://www.marketnewsvideo.com/?id=200911Citigroup112409&mv=1.

http://www.marketnewsvideo.com/

Like all other sector players that Citigroup has met on its Scandinavian visit, the group is "cautiously optimistic", the broker said.

Atlas Copco plans to grow via increased aftermarket share in the business mix, more focus on new products in Asia, and acquisitions.

The group has not been very active in terms of acquisitions so far but Citigroup expects that this will change in the short term.

So far in 2009, the development of Atlas Copco's share has underperformed the sector. However, the broker did not recommend investors to buy the stock in the present situation due to the relatively high valuation.

Atlas Copco is currently traded at a premium versus the sector and its own ten-year average price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, which means that the recovery potential is already included in the valuation, Citigroup said.

By 11:13 CET on Friday, the B-series shares in Atlas Copco were down 0.33% to SEK89.40 on the OMX Nordic Exchange in Stockholm.

(EUR1 = SEK10.3)

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