New York - Citigroup, hit hard by the massive US credit crisis, is shedding another 400 billion dollars of its assets in an effort to get back in the black, the company said Friday.

The divestment of one-fifth of the assets of the country's largest financial firm is to occur over the coming two to three years, the firm said. Assets which do not belong to its core business will be the first to go.

Vikram Pandit, the firm's head since five months, plans to announce further details to investors in the course of Friday.

The company lost 5.1 billion dollars in the first quarter and has recorded more than 40 billion dollars of credit losses and writedowns since the subprime mortgage market collapsed last year.

The bank has already been working to divest at least 65 billion dollars of its assets, including the employee-benefit joint venture CitiStreet LLC, Diners Club International credit-card payment network and CitiCapital, a provider of leases and financing for industries including health care and construction, according to Bloomberg financial news.

Selling assets will bolster Citigroup's so-called Tier 1 capital, the core measure of solvency demanded by regulators.

"He's carting off the non-significant operations and raising money so that he can reinvest it in the business he's in, which is loaning money," Robert Olstein, of Olstein Capital Management, told Bloomberg.

Pandit has already raised 44 billion dollars in capital, more than any financial-services company, through stock sales and private offerings to investment funds controlled by foreign governments including Abu Dhabi. (dpa)