Chasing their Wall Street counterparts, Citigroup's Asia-Pacific prime brokerage team plans to expand by 10%.

Citigroup Group (C.US) plans to expand the size of its Asia-Pacific main brokerage business team by about 10% this year, as part of the group's overall strategic layout, aiming to attract more hedge fund resources in the Asia-Pacific region. Sue Lee, market director for Citigroup South Asia Pacific, said that the personnel expansion will focus on Singapore and India as core areas, with the bank recruiting talents for front-office and technology positions to further strengthen its global business service platform. The expansion of the Asia-Pacific team is in line with Citigroup's global strategic pace: the group plans to increase the asset size of its main brokerage business to over $700 billion by 2028, a significant increase from the $450 billion size in 2025. Citigroup has long been strong in the interest rate and fixed income fields, but its stock business sector has lagged behind its Wall Street peers. The bank is currently working to narrow this business gap. The main brokerage business of Citigroup mainly provides funding and securities lending services for hedge funds to assist them in executing trades. To strengthen the core management team, Citigroup continues to recruit experienced talent from competitors. Last year, Citigroup hired Jignesh Patel, who has backgrounds working with Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS.US) and Millennium Management, as the head of the main financing business in Asia Pacific, and also recruited Laiman Wong from UBS Group AG (UBS.US) to oversee market senior client relationship management in Hong Kong. With the key executives in place, Citigroup is now entering the second phase of large-scale recruitment. Paul Smith, market director for Citigroup Japan, North Asia, and Australia, said that after completing the recruitment of core frontline personnel in various Asia-Pacific regions last year, the current focus is on filling talent gaps in various business positions. In the first quarter of this year, the trading revenue of major U.S. banks was generally strong. JPMorgan (JPM.US) benefited from increased customer trading demand due to market volatility, leading to a historical high in the asset size of its main brokerage business. Smith revealed that in the first quarter of this year, Citigroup's global main brokerage business assets grew by over 50%, setting a new record, with the Asia-Pacific market becoming a significant growth area. The regional business growth mainly comes from deepening cooperation with existing customers and attracting new customers. Smith said that the current industry trend is for customers to choose to cooperate with multiple main brokerage institutions, and hedge funds are more inclined to diversify their cooperation layout. Citigroup continues to increase investment in customer coverage, balance sheet allocation, and business platform construction to meet the diverse cooperation needs of its customers. He also pointed out that in the first quarter, there was a record high influx of stock funds from mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan markets for Citigroup, with a large amount of funds focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and technology-themed investments. The demand from quantitative hedge funds and multi-strategy hedge funds to enter the Chinese stock market is also very strong. In terms of stock trading center status, Singapore has long been behind Hong Kong. The Singapore regulatory authorities are currently actively promoting the development of the local stock market and improving market liquidity. The Singapore Exchange has partnered with Nasdaq (NDAQ.US) to prepare a new dual listing platform for enterprises. The Singapore Exchange stated that it plans to establish a new global listing sector, where companies with a market value of not less than S$2 billion (equivalent to $1.5 billion) can raise funds simultaneously in the US and Singapore markets through this platform. The board is expected to be officially launched in the middle of this year. Lee added that several Southeast Asian technology companies are interested in listing on this new global listing sector, and global asset management institutions also plan to strategically enter related markets. Citigroup is assisting clients in preparing in advance to seize this new opportunity in the capital market.