FOR ALL ITS regulatory problems, falling share price and worries about lawsuits, Citigroup's underlying business model works. It emerges as the pre-eminent global banking group, having won most of the categories in most of the major surveys Euromoney conducted in 2002, principally foreign exchange, cash management and capital raising. It was also voted third in terms of overall risk management capabilities and tops all five constituent sub-categories - underwriting, trading, advisory, transactions processing and internet - of this year's review.
UBS, in second place, has had an even better year than Citigroup. It has achieved the biggest climb - no less than six places in the overall rankings - to compete with Citi for top spot. UBS beat JPMorgan Chase to first place in September's survey of overall risk management capabilities; came within one-fifth of 1% of Citi's first-place score in the forex survey and dominated rankings of forex internet research, straight-through processing (STP) and execution capabilities. UBS was the second largest global coordinator of equity issues, and the fourth most active bookrunner in the 12 months ending November 2002.
Deutsche and JPMorgan Chase have not had blindingly good years in terms of Euromoney survey results.