Citi Treasurer to Depart After 33 Years at the Bank

Citigroup Inc.’s treasurer, Mike Verdeschi, is departing to pursue other opportunities after a 33-year career with the Wall Street giant.

Verdeschi has been treasurer for six years, during which he managed the firm’s $2.4 trillion balance sheet through the coronavirus pandemic, a rapid increase in interest rates, and banking turmoil, according to a memo to staff. Mark Smith, most recently head of the firm’s treasury and trade solutions division in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, will take on the treasurer role on an interim basis.

“Mike has thoughtfully and responsibly managed our balance sheet through some especially turbulent times,” Citigroup CFO Mark Mason said in the memo. “Many of you within and outside of the treasury team have built relationships with Mike, and together we will continue to progress our strong treasury work.”

As treasurer, Verdeschi amassed a $507.9 billion securities portfolio that’s generating 3.52 percent, the best yield among its biggest rivals as of June 30, according to company filings compiled by Bloomberg. He’s leaving as banks across the country contend with rising levels of unrealized losses on some of their balance-sheet investments after the Federal Reserve’s aggressive push to raise interest rates caused the value of some of those investments to fall.

Earlier in his career, Verdeschi served as Citigroup’s chief investment officer as well as head of rates portfolio management. He will remain with the company for the next few weeks.

Smith, a 25-year veteran of Citigroup, was previously the corporate treasurer for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region as well as head of the North America Group-of-10 markets treasury and fixed-income finance desk.

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