Citi's latest job cuts are a terrible shock
If you were looking for a team that should have been immune to the impediments facing banking jobs this year, Citi's global FX strategists should have been a good example. They have been thriving. And yet, they have been cut.
"It doesn't make any sense," says one top London FX headhunter. "This is a big surprise."
Bloomberg reported that the cuts afflicted at least five senior people in FX: Ebrahim Rahbari, global head of FX analysis and content; Benjamin Randol, lead North America macro FX strategist; Giammarco Miani, a macro FX strategist in London; Vasileios Gkionakis, head of European FX strategy (who's in a consulting period) and Thomas Fitzpatrick, global head of CitiFX Technicals.
Some of those cut are comparatively recent arrivals: Miani only joined from Commerzbank in October 2022; Randol joined last July in New York from Bank of America; Gkionakis came from Lombard Odier at the end of 2021.
At the other extreme, Fitzpatrick had been with the bank for nearly 40 years and possibly therefore left of his own volition.
The rest, however, appear to have been removed as a part of a cost-cutting process, which is curious given that Citi highlighted its FX business as an area of strength in the first quarter of this year.
The cuts also seem unusual to the extent that Citi's FX strategy team was one of the best in the industry. Last year, it ranked first in the Institutional Investor Global Fixed-Income Rankings in the US for the fourth year running, while Rahbari came first in the individual rankings.
This should at least bode well for them all finding new jobs in hedge funds.
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