Morning Coffee: Now Deutsche Bank is accumulating ex-Citi people too. The bad thing about being a banker now

It's not unusual for banks to swap staff. In most cases, a banking career will involve a grand tour of the big names, followed by a slide down the smaller ones. Even so, it's notable that senior Citi people in particular seem to be aggregating in new clusters. 

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There is a cluster at HSBC, where Michael Roberts and Gerry Keefe are running the corporate and institutional bank after joining from Citi in 2019 and 2020 respectively. And now it seems that an ex-Citi cluster may be coming together at Deutsche Bank too.

Deutsche has appointed a new chief financial officer in the form of Raja Akram, a motorbike-riding ex-CFO from Morgan Stanley. Akram says he's "honoured to join" the German bank. He won't arrive until October 1st, so he'll have plenty of time to meet his new colleagues. Helpfully, though, Akram knows his predecessor, James Von Moltke, already.

Akram and Von Moltke worked together at Citi. The two were both employed by the US bank and worked alongside each other during the financial crisis, where Akram presumably impressed Von Moltke to the extent that he remembered him 17 years later.

One senior ex-Citi hire would be more beacon than cluster, but Akram is not alone. Deutsche also has Alison Harding Jones, Citi's ex-head of EMEA M&A running its global M&A business. Harding Jones has, in turn, hired people like Peyman Dadgar, a Citi TMT banker. And Deutsche bank has Pedro Goldbaum, Citi's former head of rates trading, as its head of US rates. 

Does the Citi DB cluster matter? Not necessarily, except that HSBC is further down the Citi road and that people there are complaining that the Citi incomers are multiplying and grabbing all the best jobs. Could something similar happen at DB? Maybe the ex-Citi people are simply better anyway, but some DB lifers have been leaving. - Mark Fedorcik retired from running Deutsche's investment bank after 30 years in February, and there are rumours of more senior exits to come. 

Separately, being an M&A banker in 2025 sounds suboptimal. Deals have not come back as fervently anticipated, and the work required to do the deals has sprawled across everything.

Speaking to Bloomberg, senior bankers suggested 2025 is a grind. “Things are changing by the minute,” said Jim Langston, an M&A partner at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison in New York. “You print a board book for a meeting one day, and by the time the meeting happens the next day things have shifted in a different direction.” Marc-Anthony Hourihan, chairman of global M&A at UBS, said processes have become "elongated", even for "A+ assets" as potential buyers want information on tariffs, onshoring and immigration upfront. 

The implication is that bankers are doing more work for deals that may not happen and fees that may never be booked. It's not surprising that banks are cutting jobs. 

Meanwhile...

Rig Karkhanis at Nomura thinks markets revenues will rise 20% this year and he wants to hire. Equities and credit traders are his likely targets. He wants a 40% contribution from the equity business and 30% each from macro and spread products. Historically, macro contributed 40% of revenues. (Bloomberg) 

Jefferies bosses are saying things like: “There remains strong dialogue around potential investment banking transactions (capital raising and advisory) and our high quality backlog continues to build. Its realisation depends on confidence and visibility re-emerging, which may be beginning.” (Financial News) 

HSBC won't be running its UK Corporate & Investor Conference this year now that it's closing its UK M&A and ECM business. (Financial News) 

Orkun Kilic closed his hedge fund a year ago and spent some time investing on behalf of friends and family. Now he's back with Berry Street Asset Management. (Bloomberg) 

Jim Zelter, Apollo Global's president does not think that private credit is a bubble. “Bubble means there’s very much irrational actions, and while I think there are folks that are probably taking [a] more aggressive portfolio construction than I would take, I don’t think it’s a bubble where you’re going to find the massive losses that you saw in other bubbles since I’ve been around." (Financial Times) 

Ardea, the boutique run by ex-Goldman bankers, is hiring Evercore director Max Fallstrom. (Financial News) 

Taula Capital now manages $6.5bn, up from $5bn in June last year. It is bigger than Jain Global. (Financial News) 

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