Citi Confirms Roos Hire for Prime Finance Role

Citigroup has confirmed the hire of Murray Roos to the newly created role of global head of Sales for Equities and Prime Finance, days after reports of his departure from Deutsche Bank.

In the role, Roos will be responsible for leading Citi’s global sales strategy across their equity and prime finance products. Based in London, he will report to Derek Bandeen, global Head of Equities, Okan Pekin, global Head of Investor Services, and Jim O’Donnell, global head of Investor Sales.

The hire of Roos is the latest as Citi looks to bolster its prime finance division, despite suffering heavy losses in its foreign exchange prime brokerage due to the recent volatility in the Swiss Franc.

Earlier this month, Citi hired Adam Herrmann from UBS as its new global head of Prime Finance.

“The addition of Murray is of strategic importance to our businesses as we continuously strive to integrate our offering across Citi’s Markets franchise. We are confident that Murray’s extensive industry experience will drive growth and further enhance our ability to serve our clients across the full spectrum of equities and prime finance products and solutions,” says Pekin.

The exit of Roos from Deutsche Bank comes as the German bank is planning to shrink its prime finance unit in an attempt to reduce exposure on its balance sheet in the light of the Basel III capital requirements.

In addition to Roos, Deutsche Bank lost its co-head of U.S. Prime Finance, Scott Carter, in January.