Office-Loan Issues Like Pig Moving Through Python, Citizens Says

The issues with office mortgages that have bedeviled US lenders are going to take longer to work out, a pair of regional-banking giants warned Wednesday.

Executives at Citizens Financial Group Inc. and U.S. Bancorp, which both announced first-quarter results Wednesday, told investors that even as office-loan troubles ramp up, the issues had been expected.

“To use a colloquialism, the pig is going through the python,” Citizens Chief Executive Officer Bruce Van Saun said on a conference call with analysts Wednesday. “It’s going to take a few more quarters for that to fully work its way through, but we’re not ...