Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc. lost more money than it made in the four years it traded financial instruments based on U.S. subprime mortgages, a senior company executive said.

William Mills, chief executive of the U.S. bank's markets and banking division in Europe, said his bank had suffered ``reputational damage'' from the fallout even though the bank had made ``adequate disclosures'' to customers who were trading in Collateralized Debt Obligations and other similar instruments.

``Our losses greatly exceeded the profits we made in this field over several years,'' Mills said at a hearing of the Treasury Committee in the U.K. Parliament today.

Citigroup's mortgage-related losses and a 45 percent slump in the company's stock led to last month's departure of CEO Charles O. ``Chuck'' Prince III. The largest U.S. bank by assets has estimated losses from subprime mortgages and related securities may cut fourth-quarter profit by up to $7 billion.

Gerald Corrigan, the managing director in charge of risk management at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., told the same parliamentary panel that his bank had fared better than Citi.

``On balance, we probably made money,'' Corrigan said. ``We have had a measure of success in hedging some of our exposure.''

Corrigan said that disruptions akin to the subprime crisis could happen again even if bankers devote ``relentless energy'' towards preventing them.

``It is the nature of things, sad but true, that that these periodic disruptions will occur,'' he said. ``We have to be honest enough to recognize that as hard as we work at this, sometime in the future another surprise will occur.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Gonzalo Vina in London at gvina@bloomberg.net; Sebastian Boyd in London at sboyd9@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 4, 2007 08:29 EST