Previously managing director of electronic trading at BMO, Asl departed earlier this year to take up a new role as Citi’s head of EMEA electronic trading, as BEST EXECUTION reported in May. But how is Citi performing overall…?
Asl joined BMO Capital Markets in December 2021 as part of the firm’s European build-out of its electronic equities trading team, spending just under two years with the bank before departing for pastures new.
He was formerly with Exane for four years as an electronic trader.
Prior to this he held the role of managing director with Deutsche Bank for almost a decade as co-head of Autobahn equity EMEA (Deutsche’s integrated execution platform providing electronic access to the bank’s sales, trading, algo and research resources). Asl started his career as an equity trader with EBI, and has also held electronic equity trading roles with BNY Mellon’s Pershing, ING and G-Trade.
He joins a team with an illustrious background and some big names in its past – including Tim Wildenberg, previously instrumental in building out UBS’ electronic trading business, who held the role from 2011-13; and Jack Vensel, now a professor at Bryant University, who built and ran Citi’s initial electronic and algorithmic trading business across EMEA (and also, whilst on the board of directors for Turquoise, played a key role in its sale to the London Stock Exchange Group).
Citi looks to be building out its European trading teams once again – in March this year it named Rio Dhat as its new head of EMEA leveraged trading, while in May 2022 it promoted Amit Raja (formerly head of credit markets trading) to regional head of EMEA markets. The bank is also currently seeking a new London-based head of fixed income electronic trading technology, along with a number of other open positions, for its newly-formed fixed income electronic trading technology team.
Earlier this month, Citi reported better-than expected earnings (US$1.33 per diluted share) and revenue (US$19.4bn) for Q2. However, revenue was still down 1% from a year ago as the pressure on its trading and deal-making divisions continued.
Fees from its markets business (trading stocks and bonds for its clients) fell 13% while investment banking revenues dropped 44% on the previous year, and the bank performed less well than some of Wall Street rivals (notably JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, both of whom saw earnings jump by around 60% in Q2). Its net income also fell 36% to US$2.9bn, down from US$4.5bn over the same period last year.
“Amid a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, we continued to see the benefits of our diversified business model and strong balance sheet,” said CEO Jane Fraser in a statement.
“Markets revenues were down from a strong second quarter last year, as clients stood on the sidelines starting in April while the US debt limit played out. In banking, the long-awaited rebound in investment banking has yet to materialize, making for a disappointing quarter.”
LEARN MORE: Check out our Results Round-up for more information on the latest Q2 figures.
Fraser has taken the bank, which is still struggling to find its feet following the financial crisis, through an extensive restructuring since she joined in 2021 – including the closure of its non-US retail operations and a substantial number of lay-offs (reported to have reached 5,000 in the first half of 2023), particularly within its trading and investment banking businesses, with around 50 jobs believed to have been cut from the London team. The cuts, which amounted to around 2% of global staff, resulted in around US$400m in additional expenses, according to CFO Mark Mason, which impacted Q2 earnings.
However, Fraser has also seen some notable wins from her campaign, especially around compliance and controls – including the lifting of a 10-year old consent order from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in 2022.
“We have worked very hard to remediate the issues identified in the OCC’s consent order by strengthening internal controls, independent testing and how we conduct due diligence,” Fraser said in a memo last year. “The lifting of the consent order gives us confidence that we can address long-standing issues in our risk and control environment as we push forward with the transformation.”
There is still some work to be done though – in April last year a Citi trader at the bank’s London desk made a manual error that resulted in a “flash crash” across the Nordic equity markets, with the OMX Stockholm 30 Index losing up to 8% in a matter of minutes. Citi subsequently admitted that its trader made a mistake “inputting a transaction”.
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