Morning Coffee: Citi's big guns line up behind senior executive accused of sarcasm. Enraged broker faces disciplinary action

Andy Sieg, the head of Citi's wealth management division, is a person who charges hard. In the process, maybe he upsets some people. To the extent that he does, it is nothing out of the ordinary.

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This appears to be the message from Citi since it concluded its investigation into accusations that Sieg had upset colleagues with "expletive-filled rants", sarcasm, and public criticism. Bloomberg reported that six managing directors complained; Citi asked law firm Paul Weiss to investigate. They found nothing untoward. 

Since then, Citi has been healing the wound. Sieg is a "hard-charging leader," said a Citi spokesman at the time of the first report. Sieg has taken a "hard look" at things in the wealth management business and "very methodically" taken out excess cost, said Citi CFO Mark Mason this week. Yesterday, Citi CEO Jane Fraser said she was "very comfortable" with the investigation into Sieg's behaviour. "We looked at the matter seriously," said Fraser. “I gave Andy a very clear mandate when he joined Citi, which was to transform our wealth business...I’m very pleased with what the team and the business have achieved.” 

The implication is that Citi considers that Sieg didn't do anything wrong and that to the extent that he upset people, it was in line with his "clear mandate" to transform the business. Earlier this month, Citi said BlackRock will in future be managing $80bn of its wealth assets, in a move that will involve closing Citi's in-house asset manager and moving some staff members to Blackrock instead. 

This will be good news to anyone who fancies working away from Sieg, who for his part has said publicly that the stories about him were inaccurate, that "change is hard" and that they're "moving ahead full speed.”

While this occurs, Kristen Bitterly Michel, a senior wealth executive whose treatment by Sieg was reportedly part of the initial complaint and investigation, seems more than happy in her job. Bitterly Michel, who is head of Citi's wealth at work team, posted on LinkedIn yesterday to enthuse about Citi's Wealth Appreciation Week. It's a "joy" to celebrate the team, said Bitterly Michel, standing with some nachos. "We're energized and ready to end the year even stronger!" No mention of sarcasm.

Separately, brokers are known for 'laddish behaviour,' but oil broker Danny Fen ("Fenny") may have taken things too far. 

A recording of Fen shouting expletives at Bart Pratt, head of the fuel desk at Onyx Capital, has been doing the rounds for a while and has finally come to the attention of the Telegraph, which observes that Fen explodes after mistakenly thinking that Pratt has called him a "c**t" and then says, “shut the f--- up”. “We’ll see where we are. I’ll march you off to a little corner, and we’ll see who the c--- is.” 

Fen works for Marex, which says it's reviewing the incident and deciding whether disciplinary action is appropriate. Fen's temper has caused problems in the past. In 2018, he shouted at ticket inspectors at Liverpool Street Station. In 2017, he called a colleague a "posh twat" in a bonus letter. Fen is hard charging and good at his job.

Meanwhile...

David Solomon says Goldman Sachs is having a fine week for IPOs. "This week, we will do more IPOs and have more IPO activity at Goldman Sachs than we've had since July 2021 (Bloomberg) 

Jane Fraser at Citi says things are looking up, especially in the Middle East. “Our client base now is really starting to act with confidence...The Middle East is probably on a rip for the next decade or so in terms of how much investment and new industries, new clients coming in.”  (Yahoo) 

Morgan Stanley co-president Dan Simkowitz says there's a "dramatic improvement" in the deals outlook. (Reuters) 

Cantor Fitzgerald has doubled the size of its investment bank in the past 18 months. Sage Kelly, global head of investment banking, said earlier this year that he aims to lift his division’s headcount to 350 from 250. (Bloomberg) 

HSBC bankers are reconvening at Standard Chartered. Now Keith Welch has joined to lead the M&A business in Europe. (Financial News) 

DRW has hired at least 23 traders in London this year. They include Asa Attwell, a currencies veteran who joined from UBS where he spent four years trading FX options. It pays an average of to £371k. (Financial News) 

JPMorgan is working on plans for what could be the biggest office building in London in Canary Wharf and has appointed Foster + Partners to design it. (Bloomberg) 

Capstone Investment Advisors is closing its Hong Kong office and firing four people. (Bloomberg) 

Two Sigma quant researcher Jian Wu has been charged with secretly manipulating algorithmic investment models so they appeared to be generating higher returns than they were, with the goal of inflating his own compensation by millions of dollars. (Bloomberg) 

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