Citi's new MDs are revealing themselves ahead of intense Thursday
It's the first week of December. This means it's managing director (MD) week at Citi, which has been shaking things up and probably needs to keep people happy with new titles.
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Citi isn't saying anything about who its new MDs are, or even when it announces promotions internally. In investment banking, we understand that Thursday is the big day. In markets, however, the names of the fortunate are dribbling out already.
They include Roberto Massacci, Citi's head of EMEA single stocks trading, who's been with the bank for 15 years and who presumably assisted with Citi's 24% year-on-year increase in equities sales and trading revenues in the first nine months. There's also Iqbal Sohal in fixed income structuring. Both are based in London. Clearly there are more people on the list.
While some markets people have already had the call, Citi's investment bankers don't know who's been promoted yet. Insiders at the bank say Thursday is the big day and that the new MDs are "top secret" until then. "There will be a call probably 8am NYC/1pm London for the readout. MDs attending that call are told not to contact anyone on the list for fear of someone being told randomly that they got it ahead of their official call," says one.
While promotions are always intense, this year's Citi promotions promise to be doubly so. They follow the arrival of Vis Raghavan and Achintya Mangla from JPMorgan. Raghavan and Mangla are expected to hire in new people next year and are shaking up the investment bank.
"It's a tough process," says one Citi insider ruefully in contemplation of the promotions. Another says the choice of new MDs reflects the intersection of the business, the platform, the size of team and performance. He suggests that the big question this year will be the extent to which promotions are skewed towards the US, or not. US activity is expected to pick up first, but Raghavan and Mangla have displayed a recent tendency to favour bankers from Europe.
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