The co-head of equities at Citi, Murray Roos, is set to leave the investment bank after almost serving five years within its stock trading and prime finance businesses, according to an internal memo seen by The TRADE.
The memo, penned by Carey Lathrop and Andy Morton who head up Citi’s global markets and securities services business, confirmed that Roos will pursue an opportunity outside of the organisation.
Roos has co-led equities, alongside Dan Keegan, at Citi in London since 2016 after he joined the institution from Deutsche Bank in 2015. His departure follows the recent move by Citi to merge its equities, prime brokerage and securities services business units under one roof, known as equities and securities services (ESS).
The new ESS unit was jointly led by Roos, Keegan and Citi’s global head of prime, futures and securities services, Okan Pekin. The internal memo from Citi confirmed that Keegan and Pekin will continue to lead the ESS business following Roos’ departure.
“Under Murray’s co-leadership of equities with Dan Keegan, the business has continued to increase client relevance across several areas of focus,” the memo said. “Over the last five years, we have improved our industry revenue ranking to sixth, up from ninth, prudently allocating balance sheet to drive wallet share growth and capitalising on investments in talent and technology.”
The formation of ESS was the latest in a string of restructuring moves as Citi looks to streamline its businesses to meet the changing needs of its clients, specifically its hedge fund clients.
Speaking to The TRADE last month, Antonin Jullier, global head of sales and client executives for equities, prime finance and FICC at Citi, said the new ESS unit brings all of the bank’s activities under one roof to provide a more holistic service, such as advisory, trading and execution, financing, clearing and custody.
“By having one strategy across our cash and prime franchises, it means deeper relationships with our biggest clients,” he said. “Our investments have been focused on improving the performance of our algos, the speed and capacity of our systems, risk and margin calculation tools, and to offer an electronic swaps platform.”