Citi ECM deals spearhead Arvind Vashistha to stay back

Citibank

Citi equity capital market deals spearhead Arvind Vashistha has reversed his earlier decision to quit the firm and will now stay back, multiple sources in the know told Moneycontrol on the condition of anonymity.

Initially, Vashishtha had planned to move on and join rival investment bank JP Morgan in a senior role, Moneycontrol had reported on February 5.

Citi declined to comment and Vashistha was unavailable for an immediate comment.

Vashistha, a chartered accountant, joined Citi as head of equity capital markets in November 2014. He joined from UBS, where he had worked as an executive director, global capital markets, since 2006.

In the past 2-3 months, Citi has advised on a clutch of block deals relating to firms like ITC, TCS, Vedanta, Zomato, Devyani International and Gland Pharma.

In February, Citi poached JP Morgan's global head of investment banking Viswas Raghavan. Raghavan will join Citi as the Walk Street lender's new head of banking. Then Achintya Mangla, global head of equity capital markets, also quit JP Morgan to "pursue opportunities outside the firm".

Dealmaker Churn

The domestic i-banking industry has witnessed a lot of top-level churn in the past few months amid a frenzy of capital market deals across sectors, especially in the block deals and IPO segment.

In December, JM Financial announced the appointment of Axis Capital's Chirag Negandhi as MD in a role which would see him overseeing various businesses of the group, including institutional equities, equity capital markets, private wealth, alternate investments, portfolio management services and real estate advisory. Negandhi was earlier the Joint MD and co-CEO at Axis Capital. Salil Pitale, the other co-CEO also stepped down, according to reports.

On January 20, Moneycontrol broke the news of veteran dealmaker Atul Mehra exiting top domestic investment bank JM Financial after a tenure of more than 32 years. He joined rival Axis Capital as the new MD & CEO.