Citi adds 10% APAC prime staff

Citigroup plans to add about 10% more staff to its Asia-Pacific prime brokerage business this year, according to a Bloomberg report published on May 14. The hiring is aimed at winning more hedge-fund business in a region where banks compete for financing, custody, securities lending and trading relationships. Bloomberg said the expansion will center on Singapore and India and will include front-office and technology roles. Citi’s push in Asia comes a week after the bank used its May 7 investor day to set a broader growth target for prime brokerage globally. At that event, Citi said it wants prime balances to rise to more than $700 billion by 2028, up from $450 billion in 2025 and $200 billion in 2022. Andy Morton, Citi’s head of markets, said in the investor-day transcript that more than half of the increase from 2022 to 2025 came from client acquisition. (bloomberg.com) ### Why is Citi hiring in Singapore and India? Bloomberg identified Singapore and India as the main hiring centers in the Asia-Pacific expansion. Sue Lee, Citi’s head of markets for Asia South, told Bloomberg the bank is adding both revenue-producing and technology staff to support the platform. Singapore is one of Asia’s main hedge-fund hubs, while India has become a larger target for global banks building trading, technology and operations capacity. (bloomberg.com) Bloomberg did not give a base headcount for the prime-brokerage team, but said the increase would be about 10% by year-end. ### What does a prime broker actually sell to hedge funds? (bloomberg.com) Prime brokerage is the package of services banks provide to hedge funds so they can trade and finance positions. Those services typically include margin financing, securities lending, custody, clearing and operational support. Yahoo Finance, citing Citi’s investor-day presentation, said the bank has identified prime brokerage as an investment priority with spending aimed at coverage, capacity and analytics. (bloomberg.com) Citi’s own investor-day materials placed that effort inside a wider Markets strategy to “build prime to take share in equities.” The May 7 investor-day page lists Morton as the executive responsible for the Markets presentation, which set out the bank’s priorities for growth. ### How does this fit with Citi’s earlier Asia hiring plans? (finance.yahoo.com) Citi had already signaled a regional hiring push before this week’s report. In July 2025, the bank said it planned to increase headcount in its Asia rates and prime businesses by 5% to 10% over the next year as hedge-fund activity and client flows increased. The Asset reported at the time that Citi said its prime hedge-fund clients in Asia had doubled in two years. (citigroup.com) That earlier plan linked the hiring to stronger activity in Hong Kong and China markets. The new Bloomberg report narrows the focus to prime brokerage and points to Singapore and India as the main locations for the next round of additions. ### How large is the business Citi wants to build? (theasset.com) Citi’s May 7 investor-day presentation put concrete numbers around the bank’s ambitions. Bloomberg reported that Citi is targeting more than $700 billion of prime balances by 2028, compared with $450 billion in 2025. Morton said in Citi’s investor-day transcript that the bank had “more than doubled” prime balances from $200 billion in 2022 to $450 billion in 2025, and that 55% of that increase came from client acquisition rather than market moves. (businesstimes.com.sg) He also said equities remains an area where Citi has room to grow, with a 5% share cited in the presentation. (bloomberg.com) ### What should readers watch next? Year-end 2026 is the timeline Bloomberg attached to the Asia-Pacific hiring plan, making Citi’s staffing progress in Singapore and India the next concrete milestone. Any update is likely to surface in future Citi Markets presentations, earnings materials or comments from executives including Sue Lee and Andy Morton. (bloomberg.com) (citigroup.com)