Morning Coffee: Citi's strange new court case and the secret song. Goldman traders' bad time at Verition

Not so long ago, Andy Sieg at Citi seemed to have put complaints by various senior female employees behind him. He was focused on getting on with his new and bigger job while repeating the mantra that "change is hard" and talking about growth stories at Davos. Yesterday, however, a new Sieg-related lawsuit was filed, and it seems more peculiar than the complaints preceding it.

The Financial Times reported that Julia Carreon, who was Citi Wealth’s global head of platform and experience until 2024, has filed a lawsuit in which she says Citi wrongly claimed that she had an inappropriate relationship with Sieg while she worked there. 

Citi says Carreon's lawsuit has "absolutely no merit" and that it will be demonstrating this "through legal process." 

Whereas earlier complaints about Sieg - which Citi insists it thoroughly investigated - focused on his alleged hard-charging approach, Carreon's suit portrays an isolated individual at the top of one of Citi's most challenging businesses who, she claims, called and texted her multiple times a week - sometimes from a burner phone - because he had no one to talk to. 

Carreon says she wasn't having a relationship with Sieg, but claims that Sieg insinuated that they were. She says Sieg's insinuations included claiming that they shared a "secret song." The song is not divulged. 

When Carreon and Sieg's alleged closeness was discerned by Citi and by colleagues, who the Wall Street Journal says assumed that she was having an affair with Sieg, Carreon says the bank conducted an investigation. She says this was biased against her and that the HR team sided with Sieg. In her complaint filed yesterday, she accuses the bank of having a “discriminatory and sexually harassing culture.” Citi denies this. 

As Business Insider observed this week, Sieg is one of Citi CEO Jane Fraser's prize hires. Fraser said in September that the bank "looked at the matter seriously" when earlier complaints were made about him, and concluded that they were invalid. Sieg was tasked with cutting costs and restructuring the wealth business, where revenues have increased 22% in the past two years. Fraser said last September that Sieg had "delivered" on his mandate and that she was very pleased with both he and his team. 

Separately, Sina Lashgari and Jon Paul seemed to be having a fine time at Goldman Sachs, where their 20-person program trading team made $700m a year for two years to 2022 and an unnamed individual received a $9m bonus. 

Like many talented traders, the two decided to move to a hedge fund. Unfortunately, the move seems to have been fraught from the start. First, Goldman accused them of, "accessing sensitive Firm proprietary computer software...without authorization or a valid business purpose, and attempting to remove or hide evidence." Now, Bloomberg reports that Verition has closed their team three years after they joined.

The reason for the closure is unclear, but Bloomberg suggests it was down to the poor performance of some event-driven bets. Lashgari didn't respond to a request to comment.

Some Verition insiders have described the fund as being run by "really nice people" and having a fine culture. Others have told us that the London office is very nice and has good snacks. However, like all hedge funds, Verition has a limited tolerance for drawdowns. It is also not unfamiliar with hiring good people and letting them go again - Sara Nainzadeh, who spent 20 years at Milllennium, came and went within a year or so.

Meanwhile...

Benjamin Binet-Laisne, Goldman's head of precious metals trading, has left the bank amidst heavy competition for metals traders. (Bloomberg) 

Europe's IPO market is having a fine start to the year. It's a good time to bring defence manufacturers to market. Ammunition maker Czechoslovak Group (CSG) raised €3.8bn on Friday. (FT) 

Morgan Stanley is recruiting financial advisers, and people in capital markets and commodities in Asia. (Bloomberg) 

Mizuho hired Jon Connor and Thibaud de Maria from HSBC and JPMorgan. It also hired Armand de Vienne from HSBC and Richard Robinson from Deutsche Bank as it accumulates bankers. (Bloomberg) 

BNP Paribas is firing 1,200 people as it integrates Axa Investment Managers. (Bloomberg) 

Vanguard is plotting a major international expansion and wants to double its customers and assets within five years. (FT) 

Goldman Sachs loves its wealth and asset management business. It's just promoted seven new partners to its 46 person management committee, including the global heads of private credit, the global co-heads of wealth management, the chief investment officer of the external investment group, and the global co-head of public investing. (Bloomberg) 

Hedge funds are using prediction markets. Research has found that 95% of the time, the consensus from traditional sources like economists and consultants aligns with that of prediction markets. (Business Insider) 

You can get a premium residence of Saudi Arabia if you have $30m, a large yacht, or are a top student. All three would be great. (Bloomberg) 

The worst outcome of a financial services career: you spend more as you earn more, spend no time with your children while they're growing up, and then feel obliged to buy them a house to compensate. (Fortune) 

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