Citigroup is reportedly contemplating a major reorganization that would split its largest business division into three separate units whose leaders would report directly to CEO Jane Fraser.
Fraser is weighing the idea of breaking up the institutional clients group into different segments — investment and corporate banking, global markets and transaction services, according to a
Because the heads of the three units would report directly to Fraser, she would have more daily oversight of each operation. The move would mark the most significant change Fraser has made to the megabank's reporting structure since becoming CEO in 2021, the article said.
The leaders of each unit currently report to Paco Ybarra, who has led the massive institutional clients group since 2019. Earlier this month, Fraser said in an internal memo that Ybarra, who joined Citi 36 years ago,
Fraser did not name a successor to Ybarra, writing that Citi, with Ybarra's assistance, will spend the next several months figuring out "how to transition his responsibilities" in a way that's "consistent" with the work the bank is doing to simplify its current organizational layout.
"I expect that we'll complete our assessment and be in a position to share decisions … in coming months," Fraser wrote.
Similarly, the management structure that runs Citi's other major division — personal banking and wealth management — would also be dissolved, and personal banking and wealth management would be run separately, according to the article.
Andy Sieg, who has been president of Bank of America's wealth management division since 2017, is
A Citi spokesperson declined to comment Monday on the Financial Times article.
A potential revamp of the institutional clients group, or ICG, as Citi calls it, would come during what is already a period of major transition at Citi.
The New York-based company is in the midst of a "strategy refresh" that involves concentrating on high-growth-potential businesses to deliver larger shareholder returns, while selling or winding down other businesses, including overseas retail franchises in more than a dozen markets such as Mexico, Russia, China and Indonesia.
At the same time, Citi is engaged in a multiyear overhaul of its internal controls and risk management systems. The work to modernize risk controls was spurred in part by
With so much already going on, the possibility of a reorganization "introduces some uncertainty into what is already a complex turnaround," Piper Sandler analyst Scott Siefers said in a research note Monday. Still, the executive reporting realignment outlined in the Financial Times article "would preserve strategic continuity, streamline layers and presumably eliminate the possibility of a new head who might want to pivot the unit's direction," Siefers wrote.
ICG is an enormous revenue generator for Citi. In 2022, it made up nearly 55% of Citi's total revenues, the company said in a quarterly filing. By comparison, the personal banking and wealth management division, which includes Citi's retail bank and its credit card operations, was responsible for about 32% of total revenues last year.
