Citigroup Hires Bank of America’s Lekkas for Greece
Citigroup Inc., the fourth-biggest U.S. bank by deposits, hired Bank of America Corp.’s Pantelis Lekkas to run its corporate and investment banking operations in Greece and Cyprus.
Lekkas, 36, will be based in London and start in January, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News and confirmed by Citigroup spokesman Jeff French. He was formerly at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit for six years, where he oversaw investment banking in the same markets. Officials at Bank of America couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Citigroup, which opened an office in Greece in 1964 to serve clients in the shipping industry, employs more than 1,300 people in the country. Greece’s government is preparing to sell assets after the country’s near-default this year.
The lender ranks 20th among underwriters of Greek debt so far in 2010, unchanged from the year-earlier period and behind 15th-placed Bank of America, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Debt sales dropped 33 percent to about $54.1 billion in the period. The New York-based firm ranks 10th for stock sales in Greece this year, up from 15th in 2009, as fundraisings dropped 31 percent, the data show.
Citigroup this year arranged a share sale for Navios Maritime Partners LP and provided a shipping loan to Toisa Ltd., Bloomberg data show. Separately, National Bank of Greece SA raised 1.8 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in a rights offering this month.
To contact the reporter on this story: Elisa Martinuzzi in Milan at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net
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