Citi bankers fear Vis Raghavan’s JPMorgan hiring aspirations are being unleashed
It will be a while before Vis Raghavan becomes a veteran at Citi, but after nearly six months as the US bank’s global head of banking and executive vice chair, he’s presumably at last about to exceed his notice period.
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More importantly for people at both Citi and at JPMorgan, Raghavan is soon expected to exceed the “no-poach” period, during which insiders suspect he was banned from hiring people from JPMorgan. Raghavan officially joined Citi from JPMorgan in early June; no poach periods usually last six months.
JPMorgan and Citi declined to comment on claims that Raghavan had a six month “no-poach” clause and it's understood that reports of the imminent lapsing of the clause may be incorrect. However, it’s not clear when it will lapse instead. One Citi insider says MDs at the bank have been “openly talking” about the fact that Raghavan will soon be able to poach ex-colleagues at will and “onboard whoever he pleases.”
Raghavan has already made one major recruit from Citi in the form of Achintya Mangla, who left JPMorgan of his own volition in April and joined Citi in September. Mangla, who was an ECM banker at JPMorgan, has a big mandate at Citi, where he’s, 'head of financing for investment banking,' covering global debt capital markets (DCM) and equity capital markets (ECM), syndicate and private capital markets.
Mangla and Raghavan worked together at JPMorgan. The fear at Citi is that they will now seek to reshape the bank with an array of JPMorgan hires. Changes have already been made to Citi’s investment bank, including moving Jens Welter from London to New York to run North American investment banking coverage, making James Fleming head of the UK “cluster” instead of co-head of the global ECM business, and firing senior equity and debt capital markets bankers including – last week – Suneel Hargunani, the former co-head of EMEA ECM and, in late October, Colm Rainey, the head of corporate and FIG DCM for UK & Ireland.
While long-serving Citi bankers are being cleared out, often to the surprise and dismay of their teams, rumours abound that JPMorgan bankers are being prepped to move in. There are persistent suggestions, persistently denied by both JPMorgan and Citi that Aloke Gupte, the co-head of EMEA capital markets at JPMorgan will fill the vacancy created in EMEA ECM, for example.
For the moment, Citi insiders are watching wide-eyed as London-based managing directors in financing teams are removed. Following Hargunani's exit last week, sources say the ECM team is particularly apprehensive. "There's a feeling that if Suneel can be let go, no one is safe," says one insider.
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