Citi

Citigroup has hired Conor Brides from Goldman Sachs, as a spot trader based in London, and he will be report to Rohan Ramchandani, head of the London spot desk, a Citigroup spokesperson confirmed. The hire follows on the heels of Anthony John, who was previously employed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. John is also reporting to Rohan Ramchandani.

Volumes in US dollar-denominated investment-grade debt could reach $100 billion in May, putting 2011 on track to beat 2010 and 2009, says Peter Aherne, head of North American capital markets and syndicate at Citi. Both January and March this year saw issuance of more than $100 billion, according to Dealogic. As of May 3, $347 billion had been issued year-to-date versus $787 billion in all of 2010.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is big, but it has a small FX footprint. With some key hires in recent years, it hopes to capitalize on its potential. Can it deliver? asks Hamish Risk

John Havens takes over day-to-day running of the firm; Vikram Pandit concentrates on strategy

The SEC’s enforcement chief Robert Khuzami is under investigation for allegedly giving preferential treatment to Citigroup in the settlement of a case related to its exposure to subprime mortgages.

Poor Vikram Pandit can’t catch a break. Despite Citi stock being up almost 44% over 2010, and profits and revenues on the rise as credit losses decrease, Pandit seems to get blamed for everything. In January, the Indian police reportedly filed a case against Pandit and other senior Citi executives because of an alleged $70 million fraud at a Citibank branch in a New Delhi suburb. Yet more bizarre – the fraud was supposedly reported to the police by Citi itself. But an accusation made in a bar menu in the East Village in New York City poses perhaps the biggest threat to Pandit’s good-guy reputation. He’s apparently lost Santa Claus’s retirement funds.

Citi, which has once again been ranked first globally in Euromoney’s trade finance survey (with almost double the number of points as second placed Deutsche Bank), dominates the industry.

Court documents in the recent Terra Firma case against Citi have revealed that the relationship between the two parties was hardly harmonious long before the disputed telephone calls between David Wormsley and Guy Hands involving Cerberus Capital Management’s appetite or lack thereof for a bid for EMI.

Funding costs are rising and the markets periodically shut down. But regulators want you to raise more and to hold more short-term liquidity that you can’t reinvest at a profit. You don’t know how regulators will classify your risk assets or how much capital they will require you to hold. But it will be more than you have. Raising it will cost more than you can earn as a return on it. Fancy a challenge? Become a CFO. Peter Lee reports.

Citigroup has appointed Patrick Perret-Green as head of FX and local markets strategy for Asia ex-Japan.

Old Lane is, to many outsiders, the biggest blot on Pandit’s career at Citi. After being forced out of Morgan Stanley in 2005 by its then chief executive, Philip Purcell, Pandit and a group of close colleagues, who included now-Citi senior executives such as John Havens and Brian Leach, joined the legion of former bankers who set up hedge funds. Old Lane began operations in March 2006.

Pandit knocks Citi into shape

Vikram Pandit has taken Citi from a place where the institution was written off as a basket case to being a share beloved by star hedge fund managers and widely seen as a buy for widows’ and orphans’ pension pots.

Much out-of-hours competition between investment banks in Hong Kong comes in the drinking dens of Lan Kwai Fung and Wanchai.

Strong first-quarter results; Government ownership being sold down

Strong first-quarter results show the turnaround is working; Trading revenues stand comparison with the best firms

William Weaver to head Citi’s DCM team; Ulrik Ross gets bigger role at HSBC

A sweeping management reorganization, and a focus on improving its electronic trading capabilities, has made Citi a force to be reckoned with in cash equities and derivatives.

John Havens now leads a corporate and investment bank that has defeated the efforts of nine eminent bankers to forge its promising but disparate businesses into a true global industry leader. Senior management turnover has been a constant over the past decade, as has disappointment.

Talk to investors in financial stocks for background on profiles of Citi and Goldman Sachs and they assume Euromoney is working up a simple comparison between the biggest loser and the biggest winner in investment banking from the near collapse of the financial system.

A year ago Citi was nowhere in rates, but a quick build-out under new management has helped it ride one of the most profitable waves of 2009.

From the ruins of a failed, large investment bank, Vikram Pandit and John Havens are trying to build the foundations of a much better, smaller one. It’s still global in ambition but designed to deal with fewer clients, commit its capital much more thoughtfully and this time in the right businesses. Sceptics either say they’ve heard it all before or question why it took the bank’s leaders so long to reach the obvious conclusion. But the early signs are that it’s working rather well. Peter Lee reports.

Tough medicine has been doled out at Citi since the arrival of Derek Bandeen as head of global equities trading last summer. After a blunt diagnosis of the problem – too many people doing the wrong things – the global equities division went through a dramatic shake-up in which it shed just over a quarter of its staff.

Citi has hired Rodney Tsang, previously Merrill Lynch’s head of China private-sector coverage, as co-head of China investment banking. Tsang will report to Farhan Faruqui, head of Asia Pacific global banking, who says of the hire: "The non-SOE [state-owned enterprise] sector in China has been growing for the past few years, and it’s an area we’re continuing to invest resources in. Rodney’s hire is an important incremental step in that direction, not only because he has good relationships and a lot of credibility with clients but because his track record in sectors including general industry, consumer and real estate complements the expertise of our existing team very well."

Citi’s leadership of Euromoney’s 2009 international cash management poll results was far from a given this year.

US bank gets secondary market nod; Still lacks crucial underwriting licence

CITI: Citi’s consistency in the debt capital markets of all developing regions makes the bank stand out

Ajay Banga has left Citi to become president and COO of MasterCard after less than a year at the helm of the US bank’s Asia-Pacific business. The news is a blow to Citi, which was in the process of reorganizing its Asian businesses under Banga as detailed in a May story in Euromoney, ‘Banga demolishes Citi’s Asia-Pac silos’. Although Citi declined to comment officially on the move beyond a statement saying that a successor would be appointed soon, sources within the firm and outside it are already speculating on who that might be. The frontrunners are believed to be Shengman Zhang, the firm’s regional president, and Stephen Bird, head of the firm’s Asia consumer business and of the key north Asia region. Another candidate mentioned is Farhan Faruqui, a rapidly rising star within the firm who now heads the global banking business for Asia, although a source within the firm speculated that it might be "a little too soon for Farhan [to reach that level]".

Even before the global financial crisis fully hit home, Citi had recognized that its successful Asia-Pacific division could perform even better with a more centralized structure. Ajay Banga has put that in place, but the full impact of the changes might not be apparent for a while. Elliot Wilson reports.