Citigroup Markets Executive Leaves to Launch Fintech Investment Fund

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Citigroup’s equities-trading business long lagged behind its powerhouse fixed-income operations.



Photo:

Vic­tor J. Blue/Bloomberg News

Dan Keegan,

a top

Cit­i­group Inc.


C -1.31%

mar­kets exec­u­tive, is leav­ing the bank to start an invest­ment fund focused on finan­cial-tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies, accord­ing to an inter­nal memo.

Mr. Kee­gan held sev­er­al roles help­ing build up Citigroup’s equi­ties-trad­ing busi­ness over 15 years. Most recent­ly, he was the head of all North Amer­i­can mar­kets, a states­man­like role serv­ing as the bank’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive to top clients.

Citigroup’s equi­ties-trad­ing busi­ness long lagged behind its pow­er­house fixed-income oper­a­tions, and the bank faced pres­sure from investors to prove the busi­ness was pulling its weight. The bank has climbed to fifth place in mar­ket share for equities.

Mr. Kee­gan joined Cit­i­group when the bank acquired Auto­mat­ed Trad­ing Desk, the com­pa­ny he helped lead, in 2007. At Cit­i­group, he rose to co-head of glob­al equi­ties and lat­er helped lead a since-scrapped effort to com­bine its equi­ties and secu­ri­ties-ser­vices busi­ness­es to boost client demand.

He pushed new tech­nol­o­gy for trad­ing oper­a­tions. He has also been part of the response to reg­u­la­to­ry orders issued in late 2020 push­ing Cit­i­group to improve its inter­nal sys­tems, an expan­sive effort the bank is bet­ting on tech­nol­o­gy to help.

That put him in the cen­ter of the bank’s con­ver­sa­tions with tech­nol­o­gy star­tups. Fin­tech com­pa­nies attract­ed $210 bil­lion in new invest­ments last year, accord­ing to KPMG.

Cit­i­group named

Mike Saraceni,

who leads investor sales and rela­tion­ship man­age­ment for North Amer­i­ca, as inter­im head of the region. The bank will launch a search for his replace­ment, accord­ing to the memo from the glob­al mar­kets co-heads

Carey Lathrop

and

Andy Morton.

Many are call­ing decen­tral­ized finance, or DeFi, the “Wild West of finance.” This fast-grow­ing indus­try aims to pro­vide auto­mat­ed bank­ing ser­vices for cryp­tocur­ren­cies to every­one, with no mid­dle men. But DeFi is still in its ear­ly stages, which means there are risks. WSJ explains. Pho­to illus­tra­tion: Tam­my Lian/WSJ

Write to David Benoit at david.benoit@wsj.com

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Appeared in the March 12, 2022, print edi­tion as ‘Citigroup’s Kee­gan Leaves to Start Fund.’ 

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