Citi has appointed Jason Tudor head of commodities for Asia-Pacific, adding to a busy week that has seen three global banks announce changes to their commodities line-ups.
Tudor replaces Rob Bayley, who is returning to London, according to an internal memo seen by FinanceAsia. Tudor has 20 years experience of commodities and has worked at various banks, including Barclays, Lehman Brothers and Nomura.
He joined Citi in 2007 and has been in his current role of head of metals trading and multi asset/exotics trading since 2010.
Tudor will report to Patrick Dewilde, Asia-Pacific head of markets and securities services, and Stuart Staley, global head of global commodities for Citi, according to the memo.
“Citi’s Asia-Pacific client franchise continues to offer compelling opportunities in the commodities space and we look forward to working with Jason to continue to build our presence,” Dewilde and Staley were quoted saying in the memo.
Bayley headed the Asia-Pacific commodities business for more than four years. He will take up a new role as head of commodities structuring, where he will oversee the development and execution of structured solutions for corporate and investor clients globally.
The move comes as Citi expands its commodities operations. despite a mixed picture for the industry generally – particularly commodities trading – due to tighter regulation, tougher capital requirements for banks and the pall cast by China's economic slowdown.
The world’s top 10 banks collectively reduced their commodities staff to the lowest level for at least five years in 2013, according to research by Coalition, the market analytics group. Coalition, in a second report, also stated that commodities revenue from the same banks dropped 18% last year due to weak investor interest and low volatility.
In essence, some banks are expanding and others are pulling out of the commodities business.
Barclays, ABN Amro
Citi’s move was announced on the day Barclays confirmed it would cut 7,000 investment banking jobs by 2016 and create a bad bank of unwanted assets, including non-core commodities.
Following a strategic review, the UK bank said it would cut a total of 19,000 jobs over the next three years and dramatically slim down in an effort to improve results.
On Tuesday Barclays announced a 41% fall in revenues at its core fixed income trading business. On top of this, Barclays has lost some key executives over the past few weeks.
Robert Morrice, chairman and chief executive of Barclays Asia-Pacific, announced his retirement at the end of last week, after 17 years at the bank, 12 of which he spent as regional CEO. Hugh “Skip” McGee left his position as head of Barclays Americas last month. It also emerged this weekend that Ros Stephenson had quit as global chairman of investment banking to join UBS.
Meanwhile, Dutch bank ABN Amro this week appointed Jacqueline Chang to a newly created role of regional head of commodities Asia.
Chang, based in Singapore, will oversee the bank’s Hong Kong commodities desk and the regional structured inventory product desk in Singapore, as well as her existing responsibilities as head of commodities Singapore.
“Although a number of investment banks are pulling out of commodities trading due to regulation, especially in the US, our focus is on financing commodity flows around the world, which is a longstanding expertise of the bank not impacted at all by regulation,” Jan-Maarten Mulder, ABN Amro’s global head of commodities, told FinanceAsia.
