(Reuters) – Citigroup (NYSE:) has completed the separation of Banamex from its institutional banking business in Mexico as it prepares to list the retail bank, the Wall Street giant said on Monday.

The move to split Grupo Financiero Citi México from Grupo Financiero Banamex is part of Citi’s sweeping overhaul under CEO Jane Fraser aimed at simplifying its sprawling structure as it looks to improve the bank’s performance.

The New York-based bank is continuing to work on the proposed initial public offering of Banamex, the timing of which will depend on regulatory approvals and market conditions, Citi said.

“This separation represents an important milestone in our simplification,” Fraser said. “We will now prepare for the Banamex IPO.”

Citi has weighed a dual stock listing for the Banamex unit, possibly in Mexico City and New York, Reuters has reported.

The bank had previously said it planned to list its Banamex unit, which caters to nearly 20 million clients and has a network of 1,300 branches in Mexico, in 2025.

Citi was close to a $7 billion deal to sell Banamex to Mexican billionaire German Larrea’s conglomerate Grupo Mexico last year.

But tensions between the conglomerate and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador led to the two sides abandoning the deal, with Citi deciding to pursue an IPO instead.

Citi México will maintain a “significant” presence in the country and continue to serve the bank’s institutional clients with a team of roughly 3,000 employees.

The bank has closed its consumer banking divisions in nine markets since announcing its intention to exit the business across 14 markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Mexico, it said. Citi currently has a sale process underway in Poland.

Citi said its previously announced wind-downs of consumer businesses in China and Korea and overall presence in Russia are also nearly complete.

Investing.com — Morgan Stanley made changes to its cybersecurity stock ratings on Monday, reflecting a more cautious stance for 2025 amid an evolving market environment. 

While long-term prospects for the industry remain positive, analysts are adopting a more selective approach due to near-term pricing pressures and a less favorable U.S. fiscal backdrop.

The firm remains “positive on long-term tailwinds in security,” driven by advancements like GenAI and public cloud, which expand the attack surface and create new security needs. 

However, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:) highlights several near-term risks. They note the spending environment is stable but still challenging, with tight budgets and increasing vendor consolidation putting pressure on pricing. 

“CIOs/CISOs [are] looking to consolidate multiple vendors,” which could negatively impact prices in 2025, according to the investment bank.

In light of these pressures, the firm upgraded two cybersecurity stocks while downgrading others. 

Morgan Stanley upgraded Cloudflare (NYSE:) and Okta (NASDAQ:) to Overweight, citing emerging AI product cycles and turnaround opportunities, respectively. 

The bank sees incremental upside in companies with emerging product cycles, such as NET’s growth in Edge AI and OKTA’s improving demand and product cycles.

On the other hand, SentinelOne (NYSE:) and Tenable were downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight. 

The downgrade of S reflects a “slower expected demand for core endpoint security in 2025” and pricing pressures from competitors. Meanwhile, TENB is said to face risks due to its high exposure to the U.S. public sector, which could see budget cuts.

Morgan Stanley also continues to favor “platform consolidators” like Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:) and CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:) in the long term but notes that near-term headwinds could limit their upside as they work through platformization challenges and above-average valuations. 

Overall, while cybersecurity remains a key priority for organizations, near-term risks ”may not be fully appreciated by investors heading into 2025,” the firm concludes.