Citigroup is planning to build a new trading floor in Paris and to nearly double its staff over time.
The new floor will be in its existing building and is said to increase staff to roughly 250, up from the current 130, over the next few years.
Late last year, the US bank signalled its plans. It promoted Fabio Lisanti to head of markets for Europe (excluding the UK). He relocated from London to Paris, and had said that the bank is focused on expanding its trading functions in the French capital.
The bank has been hiring and had increased headcount in Paris from 170 in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum to 350 as of November 2022.
The intention is to hire up to 600 in the next two to three years, having moved into a new office near the Champs-Élysées.
Citi is not alone. Paris has emerged as the main trading hub for investment banks in Europe post-Brexit.
These include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley who have all been adding traders in Paris in recent months, while even Germany-headquartered Deutsche Bank has started recruiting in the French capital for its credit trading division.
The Paris bourse made the headlines last year when it knocked the London Stock Exchange off its perch. Data compiled by Bloomberg showed that the French stock market was worth $2.823 trillion, narrowly edging out the UK at $2.821 trillion.
In 2016, before the EU referendum, British stocks were collectively worth $1.5 trillion more than France.
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