Citi

Citi’s US $25 billion direct lending programme with Apollo has turned heads for its size and scope. It’s a major part of Citi’s new push to grow ancillary earnings such as cash management, in an era when regulators are curtailing banks’ ability to deploy risk in areas like leveraged finance. As big banks everywhere seek new ways to work with private credit, Euromoney reveals how this landmark tie-up will work in practice.

Javier Rodríguez Soler, BBVA’s global head of sustainability and corporate and investment banking, says an acquisition of Banco Sabadell would boost his division’s international standing. But BBVA is already eyeing a leading role in banking decarbonisation around the world, especially in the US. Partnerships with private equity companies, and investments in cleantech funds, are among the ways it is pursuing that goal.

Citibanamex, with over 139 years of history in Mexico, is a leading player in the FX business. The bank offers FX services for a diverse set of currencies, including the MXN, USD and EUR. It is known for its ability to deliver complex FX solutions through an extensive product range such as FX spot, forwards, swaps and options, supported by a robust team of over 200 professionals and coverage across 1,280 branches.

Its acquisition of Citi’s retail banking business in the Philippines has proven to be a challenge. It has put pressure on the bank’s capital buffers, while Citi’s high-end customers have shown a preference for international players.

Corporates, asset managers and hedge funds appear to be willing to work with FX service providers to improve the latter’s offerings despite concerns over core services.

Despite Asia boasting the world’s highest mobile payment penetration rate, digital banks in the region have failed to meet expectations. Traditional banks in many Asian markets no longer view them as serious competitors. What explains this underwhelming performance and are there any exceptions?

Citi saw impressive growth over 2023 with revenue growth of 16% year on year.

Citi secures the award for Korea’s best investment bank in recognition of its comprehensive range of activity across M&A advisory, debt capital markets and equity capital markets.

In 2023, Citi saw operating revenues reach around ¥139 billion ($860 million) and total assets climb to ¥6,097 billion.

Citi saw impressive growth across its corporate banking services in Hong Kong in 2023. It saw year-on-year growth in its loan portfolio and funded several significant environmental, social and governance (ESG) financing transactions.

Romania was the place of perhaps the most important bank M&A deal to be announced in 2023: the merger of the local units of Italian group UniCredit and Greece’s Alpha Bank. The deal promised to allow UniCredit, as the owner of 90% of the merged entity, to supplant Societe Generale-owned BRD as the country’s third-biggest bank.

There are many reasons why Citi wins this year’s award for Asia’s best digital bank. Above all, the bank has no peer when it comes to investing year after year in cutting-edge digital solutions that benefit all of its clients.

In 2023, Korean banks faced a perfect storm, grappling with regulatory pressure to lower interest margins while facing intense profitability hurdles. In addition, the country’s largest banks found themselves embroiled in a scandal around the mis-selling of equity-linked securities that had resulted in substantial losses for consumers.

For a global lender, Citi’s investment-banking presence in Africa is hard to compete with. The US firm has an onshore presence in 16 countries and covers 38 markets, with a dedicated team in Johannesburg supported by corporate bankers across the region.

To be the best investment bank in the fastest growing continent you can’t just be here or there, you must be everywhere.

The bank's ability to offer a full set of services almost everywhere around the globe sets it apart from the competition.

Citi stands head and shoulders above its rivals in this category. The products it generates are designed to help day-to-day business for all its clients, be they global corporates working in and across Africa, or African firms scaling up their regional and international presence.

CTBC Bank has cemented its position in Taiwan’s best bank over the past year. Driven by its dual track digital innovation and environmental, social and governance (ESG) based transformation, the bank achieved a record net profit of NT$41.3 billion ($1.3 billion) in 2023, with a cost-to-income ratio of 55.16% and a return on equity of 11.9%, the highest among its peers. Revenue and pre-tax profit grew by 16% and 12%, respectively.

The 100th anniversary of Isbank, Turkey’s biggest private-sector lender, has come after some challenging years for the country's economy and financial sector.

The awards period marked a triumphant return to performance for Allied Irish Banks (AIB), Ireland’s best bank. Putting behind it its involvement in the years-long industry-wide tracker mortgage scandal in Ireland, for which it was fined €100 million in 2022, the bank posted a very strong recovery in 2023, with record profits that nearly tripled versus the previous year. Revenues rose 62%, driven by net interest income that was up more than 80%.

Welcome to the optimistic part of the cycle for Argentina: international investment banks re-rate the outlook for the small cohort of large, listed banks and those banks start to look to consolidate. The last cycle saw equity issuance, but the banks had barely topped up the funds in their M&A war chests before the optimism faded away alongside their newly positive book values.

In investment banking, the biggest event of the year was the €2 billion IPO of Hidroelectrica in Romania, Europe’s biggest IPO in 2023. This was Romania’s largest-ever IPO and played a role in reopening the market across the continent, thanks to a strong performance in the secondary market. It also helped reawaken the international capital market to the opportunities in central and eastern Europe.

The bank is willing to spend its considerable technology budget on both exciting new ideas and on existing services that improve the lives of its customers.

Until recently investment banking in central America and the Caribbean was about having the best debt offering. The few international debt capital market mandates were obviously crucial to gain this credibility, but a presence in dollar and local-currency loans was also critical. Today it’s more complicated. The equity capital market still doesn’t really feature, but sustainable finance is crucial to the region. Moreover, the growing cross-border presence of many companies active in these countries means that transaction and treasury services are now areas of true competitive differentiation.

‘Being there’ is one of Citi’s many skills. It is always there for clients: underwriting stock offerings, printing bonds and taking the lead on bridge loans to support complex acquisitions.

Tyler Dickson’s departure from Citi must rank as one of the most predictable moves in investment banking this year, even if where he has ended up is perhaps less obvious. Elsewhere, Citadel Securities is apparently set to make an offer that some of the Street might find difficult to refuse.

Derivatives structurers are thriving, but regulators aren’t convinced the biggest Wall Street banks have a firm grasp of their complex exposure.

The bank is looking to capitalise on its local presence in Latin America as Korean and Chinese firms intensify their nearshoring efforts.

Citi Islamic Investment Bank has had a good year in Bahrain and impressed with its debt capital markets work during the awards period.

The provision of transaction services in the Middle East has become one of the most fiercely competitive parts of the market, largely concentrated around banks’ ability to support local and regional champions as well as blue-chip multinationals operating in the region.