Citi's European DCM bankers keep leaving, for various reasons
Citi's European debt capital markets (DCM) business is not what it was. People have arrived. People have left. There has been league table slippage in the process.
The latest departures include Divyen Patel, a director on Citi's European DCM syndicate desk who has resigned and is leaving of his own volition. So has Edward Jamie, a vice president (VP) on the UK and Irish debt financing team. So has Eve Lozano Doncel, another VP on the DCM team in London.
Citi declined to comment on the disappearances. Patel is going to the buy side. Jamie is understood to be joining Goldman Sachs in London, although Goldman didn't respond to a request for confirmation of this. Doncel is thought to be returning to Spain after Citi allegedly offered to relocate her and then didn't.
The departures are the latest in a line of exits. Last October, Citi let go of Colm Rainey (its head of UK and Ireland DCM), Christian Rose (an MD in Stockholm) Santhi Athreya, (head of corporate DCM for France, Belgium and Luxembourg) and Bruno Sáenz de Miera (head of debt capital markets for Iberia). Thomas Lundquist, the former head of European corporate DCM, left in 2023 along with MD Alex Hayes Griffin. Insiders said they were perplexed by the exits in late 2024 because the business had been performing well. Following the senior departures, the business was seen hiring junior bankers instead.
Citi's EMEA DCM business is now run by Tommaso Ponsele, who works with MDs like Ferdinand Haindl (German markets) and Fabio Barbera (head of DCM for Italy and Greece). Given the dearth of MDs, the new set-up is possibly cheaper than the old-set up, but it doesn't appear as effective: Refinitiv says Citi ranked seventh for European DCM in the first quarter of 2025, down from fifth in the first quarter of 2024.
Meanwhile, Citi's capital markets business has a new overall leader in the form of Achtinya Mangla, a former JPMorgan ECM banker appointed by Vis Raghavan. Insiders say Mangla has been ramping up the pressure in DCM and that many bankers are unhappy, particularly as last year's bonuses were comparatively poor. "It's irritating. - DCM makes the money, it's ECM and M&A that should be feeling the heat," says one.
Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)
