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.
As part of the restructuring, the US bank also began a push in emerging markets equities at the start of the year. This business had been underperforming fixed income in regions such as central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Although Citi was number one for fixed-income in the CEEMEA region with about a 30% share of the market in 2008, the bank tended to rank in sixth to ninth place in equities, according to Farhang Mehregani, Citi’s head of CEEMEA equities.
Mehregani, Citi’s former head of trading...
