In 2022, Citigroup had solutions to bring in and maintain new talent as junior investment banks complained of burnout from a record trading boom.
The US Bank hired 27 analysts to work from a newly opened office in Malaga. This is a city preferred by tourists and Spaniards for their sun, sea, restaurants and bar cocktails.
City’s rivals have named it a promotional stunt that has little to no use to change the culture of Wall Street. But Manolo Falco, the global co-head of investment banks at the time, insisted that “this is not a gimmick.”
Less than three years later, the office was closed and most of the staff moved to London. A small number of employees have been let go as the sun sets into an initiative designed to infiltrate from traditional working conditions faced by junior analysts who have done much of the investment bank’s grunts.
Former employees working in City’s Malaga office and employees involved in the project say the reality of many working long hours was different from the bank’s pitch, in the hopes of achieving coveted roles in cities like London and Paris.
“That flexibility, the flexibility that was sold as the core of the offering there, was not much respected,” said the former employee based in Malaga. “If you were successful and wanted to move to London, you wouldn’t have done it without the same working hours as the people there.”
The project was devised by City trio Nacho Gutiellez Orantia. Maria Diaz del Rio, the chief of staff of the business; and Falco.
The team saw a variety of countries, including Portugal, Poland and the Czech Republic, but made its landing in Spain. I was encouraged by the mayor of Malaga’s business-friendly approach.
Each analyst hired from a pool of over 3,000 applicants was assigned to one of London’s industry teams. If they work well at the end of the two-year period, Malaga could be a springboard for work in the city.
This process was primarily managed by Del Rio. Del Rio helped assign junior bunkers to different teams. The analysts didn’t work long hours as the senior manager was on the ground to manage the shift.
But former employees say that the promise of work in London, where they could be at the center of their actions, made them feel like they had to work longer hours to stand out from their peers.
“Many of the employees in Malaga were miserable,” said someone familiar with the initiative. “There were many promises, but little progressed.”
Citi said it was “a focus on promoting co-workers’ mobility efforts and integrating hubs.” “Many colleagues in Malaga have revealed in successful applications due to their positions in the London and Paris hub,” he said. The bank does not specify how many of Malaga employees have been moved elsewhere.
Spanish junior analysts say they’re more flexible, but for those who wanted to go ahead, they managed to spend the same time with their London counterparts, earning half of their salary.
A city analyst in Malaga said fellows from major financial centres such as London and New York were offered an initial salary of $55,000, while accounting for more than $100,000.
“It’s very subjective about the work you were doing,” one employee said. “The more you are willing to commit to a cause, the more projects you get.”
If Malaga employees don’t want to make themselves available until early in the morning, they won’t be able to assign more demanding missions, which could deprive them of the possibility of moving.
The bank has been working on ways to attract and retain talent, especially during the trading boom that followed the pandemic’s slump when junior employees sued burnout and 100 hours of work.
Goldman Sachs junior bankers described “inhuman conditions” on the presentation deck that sparked a surge in new initiatives.
But a better work-life balance among junior employees is at odds with the demands of investment banks, where hours of logs and hard work are the currency to win promotions.
One employee of Malaga City, who moved to London, called the culture in the office “really special.”
“I probably never work in the vibe like I got there,” said the person again.
But the drawback of the new initiative launched with enthusiastic 20-something staff launched just before Chief Executive Jane Fraser began a massive restructuring of the bank was the lack of oversight from distracted city managers.
Del Rio’s departure as part of a 2024 restructuring meant that the people who oversee Malaga’s groups and employees were not forgotten. “It had the disadvantage of not having your senior there,” the former employee said.
When the office first opened in the summer of 2022, they said there was an office manager who oversaw the analyst class that had stayed for almost a year. There was a revolving door for seniors who came in and out of the office, and a long stretch that had no advanced presence at all.
“We had a six-month span that was completely forgotten,” the former employee said.
“When we didn’t have a manager, it was purely disordered, but there were people out there who couldn’t see for months, and the morale was very low,” they added. It was likely that City would close it, and it became increasingly clear that some employees who left for other jobs had not replaced them, resulting in lower attendance in the office.
City said in a statement last week that the decision to close the office was part of a strategy to “simplify the company and improve the way we operate.”
Officials say the Málaga office is the victim of Project Bora Bora and is the internal code name used for the major reorganization of Citi. With Del Rio gone out of the bank and both Falco and Gutierrez Orantia playing a variety of roles, no one supported the cause.
“People lose focus because of (rebuilding) and who is supporting this without that power moving forward?” said another person involved in the program. “The concept was good, it was a poor execution.”
For many Malaga-based analysts, the Sunshine Coast was a better job halt gap in London. But for those who wanted investment banks to offer something else, Citi’s proposal simply puts plaster on the big issue.
One employee said, “They sold us their dreams, but the reality was much different.”
