Provided by Dow Jones By Orla McCaffrey Citigroup Inc. is shutting down most of its consumer-banking operations in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, the latest sign that the original financial supermarket is rethinking how to do business. The bank on Thursday also reported a sharply higher first-quarter profit, though that was largely because its year-ago results were hammered by pandemic preparations. Citigroup posted a profit of $7.9 billion, or $3.62 a share, well above the $2.60 a share forecast by analysts polled by FactSet. A year earlier, Citigroup had reported a quarterly profit of about $2.5 billion, or $1.05 a share. The New York bank also said it would exit its consumer operations in 13 countries, mostly across Asia, to focus on wealth management and other businesses.