Sandler O'Neill Not Disappointed With Citigroup's Results Despite Some Unusual Things

Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) reported better than expected second-quarter numbers earlier on Thursday with EPS of $1.51, significantly above the $1.34 figure analysts were expecting.

Jeffery Harte, Sandler O'Neill analyst, was on CNBC to weigh in on the earnings.

Good, Strong Results

"My headline is pretty good results at Citigroup, revenues were not disappointing though there were some kind of unusual things in there," Harte said. "But I think importantly expenses were good and that's really a big part of the story for Citigroup here is getting kind of the expense base down. Expenses were a little bit higher than we were expecting, but that was entirely offset by higher than expected legal."

He continued, "You back that out, the expense story is looking better than I think was expected which is a positive. So, good strong results out at Citigroup. It looks like they had some real estate sales gains that kind of helped to inflate the revenue side a little bit. So, net-net pretty good results out of Citigroup."

Legal Reserve

Harte was asked what he makes out of the legal reserve issue at Citigroup. He replied, "We know it's going to be go down a lot, it's a matter of how quickly is it go down. I mean, we were looking for $385 million, it came in at $421 million, that includes some restructuring charges, but so I mean it's moving in the right direction. Whether it's a $100 million higher or $100 million lower in any quarter isn't so much a big deal to me, it's the direction and the direction is down, which is good."