Citigroup’s new head of banking granted $40mn in stock

Citigroup’s recently hired head of banking is receiving more than $40mn worth of shares from his new employer.

The grant, enormous even by Wall Street standards, was made earlier this week to Viswas Raghavan and disclosed by the bank in a filing on Thursday.

Raghavan, who joined Citi in June, was the head of investment banking at rival JPMorgan Chase before making the jump. He joined Citi to be the head of the bank’s newly combined investment, corporate and commercial bank — one of five divisions formed in a restructuring, the biggest in more than a decade, unveiled late last year. 

Citi chief executive Jane Fraser also named Raghavan a vice-chair of the bank when he was hired.

Earlier this week, Tyler Dickson, who had been Citi’s head of investment banking and reported to Raghavan, announced he was leaving the bank for a newly created role at private equity firm Blackstone. No replacement was named.

According to Thursday’s filing, the share grant was part of Raghavan’s hiring arrangement and in lieu of shares that he walked away from when he left JPMorgan. The shares will vest over seven years, with the first block, about $11mn, available as soon as early 2026.

Raghavan is one of a trio of hires Fraser has made in the past year to beef up the underperforming bank’s management ranks.

Andy Sieg, who joined last year from Bank of America, was paid $11mn in cash and stock for the last three months of 2023, Citi previously disclosed. It said a portion of that pay package was to compensate Sieg for shares he was still owed when he left BofA.

Citi has yet to disclose Raghavan’s full remuneration package, or say how much it is paying Tim Ryan, who joined in June from PwC as the head of technology. Ryan is also in charge of continuing to wind down numerous businesses that Citi is trying to exit.

Raghavan and his wife purchased a four-bedroom, four-bath penthouse in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood for $15mn in May, according to The New York Post. The luxury apartment was previously rented by rapper Bad Bunny for $150,000 a month.