Morning Coffee: Citadel's sumptuous internship and the special coffee. Citi's curious new M&A head

If you want to know what happens when you expose a journalist to the trappings of an internship at one of the most desirable hedge fund employers in financial services, paying $20k+ a month, plus allowances, a Business Insider writer's trip to the Citadel internship at the Four Seasons in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will give you a good idea of the response. 

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"Before even going in, I could tell the five-star hotel, which the firm took over for its annual off-site intern trip, was more luxurious than any vacation or work trip I've ever taken," declares the journalist. She proceeds to meet Citadel's newish chief people officer Sjoerd Gehring in "what must've been one of the hotel's most expensive suites." There is not just breakfast but a "large breakfast buffet." There is not just juice, but four types to choose from.

The Fort Lauderdale Four Seasons is not quite the same as the Four Seasons Palm Beach where Citadel staff and their families hung out in the ballroom during COVID, but it's probably not that different either. For a two-dimensional rendering of its pleasures, there's this promotional YouTube video showing tanned people in blue pools served coloured fruit by staff dressed in white uniforms.

It's not clear whether Business Insider partook of the juice array or swum in the pools, but the journalist observed the interns beyond the buffet. They attended talks about history and innovation, talks by previous Citadel interns extolling the virtues of their projects, and problem-solving challenges. The interns did karaoke, beach yoga and painting classes in which they painted the Fort Lauderdale sunset. 

The epitome of the internship, though, seems to have been coffee. Even though the Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale probably serves good coffee of its own, Citadel's interns were from their own special coffee bar dispensing "Citadel-themed java" in which the firm's logo was rendered in the foam. This is typical of Citadel, said Gehring in his suite. "No detail is too small to pay attention to."

Separately, after months of wondering who might become Citi's new head of M&A, we now have the answer: it will be the interim head of M&A, Kevin Cox, plus someone from JPMorgan.

The person from JPMorgan is Drago Rajkovic who was most recently a global chairman of M&A at the bank, focused on technology deals. At Citi, he will split his time between New York and San Francisco. 

Rajkovic's arrival is not exactly a surprise. Citi's investment bank is run by Vis Raghavan, who also comes from JPMorgan and likes to hire his former colleagues. However, it's not clear how all Citi's internal candidates for the M&A role (Chuck Adams, Brian Link, Phil Drury, Christian Anderson) feel about their new JPMorgan boss. Nor is it clear why Citi hired a former chairman to run the business (given that chairmen tend to be client-facing rather than internally focused). And it's notable that Citi now has co-heads of M&A, despite saying it was clearing out its co-heads two years ago. This may yet be resolved, if Cox leaves. 

Meanwhile....

Edwin Lin, Citadel’s head of fixed income and macro, is taking a sabbatical from the firm after 14 years. He'll leave on July 1st and will be back later this year. Ken Griffin will help cover for him. (Bloomberg) 

European banks are outperforming US tech, notes Goldman Sachs. (YouTube) 

Financial services professionals in New York are apprehensive about Zohran Mamdani, son of the film director of Monsoon Wedding, becoming their mayor.“The possibility of Zohran coming in is frightening. It’s going to empty the city . . . It’s much too close to call right now. It’s not going to be good for the city if he gets in there,” says one hedge fund manager. (Financial Times) 

Sponsors for Educational Opportunity is no longer able to help ethnically diverse candidates alone to get jobs at banks and law firms in the US, but it can help candidates from low income families instead. There are suggestions that this isn't happening. (FT) 

Steve McLaughlin, founder of fintech-focused M&A boutique FT Partners, makes a lot of money from advising and taking stakes in fintech firms. He also uses strict contracts that can cause problems when clients dispute the terms. (FT)

Giuseppe Paleologo, head of quant research at Balyasny, says he spends a lot of his time in meetings and doesn't have much chance to do work. He is also known for being a wit. (Bloomberg) 

Accenture says no one wants to hire consultants much now. “In every boardroom, in every industry, our clients are not facing a single challenge. They’re facing everything at once: economic volatility, geopolitical complexity and [changing] customer behaviour.” (Financial Times) 

The top 1% pay almost 30% of all income tax in the UK. The top 10% pay 60%. The bottom 50% pay well under 10%. Back in the supposedly high-tax 1970s, the top 1% paid 11% of all income tax. Tax on average earners is at its lowest level for 50 years. (Bloomberg) 

Nigel Farage might challenge the Bank of England's independence if he's ever elected. (Bloomberg) 

The new measure of a successful start-up is how few people it can employ and how much revenue it can generate per head. (Bloomberg) 

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