UPDATE 2-Did Citi offer stake to Brazil? Officials disagree
* Citi offered stake to Brazil this year - Energy Minister
* Finance Minister says offer never existed
* Citibank says no comment (Recasts with denial from Brazilian finance minister)
NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Brazil's Energy Minister Edison Lobao surprised investors on Tuesday when he told a conference in New York that Citigroup (C.N) had offered a stake in the bank to the Brazilian government earlier this year.
A few hours later, in Brasilia, Finance Minister Guido Mantega denied his colleague's report, saying such an offer never existed, as far as he knew.
Citigroup Inc, which recently sold a large stake to the U.S. government, declined to comment.
The Brazilian Treasury was offered to buy Citigroup's shares at the beginning of the year when the bank sought capital to survive the financial crisis, Lobao said.
But the Brazilian government passed on the offer, he added, as it felt that the economy needed to recover from the crisis first.
"I think it was a good opportunity that we missed," Lobao said, adding that the source of his information was President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
"But any prudent government would have been cautious at that time. And Brazil was cautious," he told reporters after the conference, organized by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce in New York.
In a news conference in Brasilia, however, Mantega said his colleague could be using "a metaphor" when talking about Citigroup.
"There was no offer from Citibank, at least nothing that came to my knowledge," he said. "Unless they made an offer to the private sector, because to the public sector there was no offer that I know of."
Last year, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority purchased a 4.9 percent stake in Citigroup for $7.5 billion.
This year, the U.S. government took over 34 percent of the bank, becoming its largest shareholder, after a February bailout. (Additional reporting by Isabel Versiani in Brasilia and Dan Wilchins in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz) ((walter.brandimarte@thomsonreuters.com; +1 646 223-6319; Reuters Messaging: walter.brandimarte.reuters.com@reuters.net))
