Trump touted a metric cherished by investment bankers, congratulating Citigroup for its position as the top adviser on mergers and acquisitions. It’s unclear, however, what league table the president is relying on to put Citi in the leading position. The bank’s shares briefly spiked after the post.
“Wow! CITI was ranked Number 1 in topping M&A Advisory Market by Value in Q1,” Trump posted Wednesday morning. “Congratulations to Jane F and ALL of her great people. They’ve worked really hard! BIG comeback for CITI!!!”
Trump’s post came soon after a Fox Business television segment Wednesday morning in which anchor Maria Bartiromo interviewed Citigroup senior banker Leon Kalvaria. A banner on the screen said that the bank topped the M&A-advisory market in power-sector deals — a sliver of the overall M&A market — in the first quarter.
The presidential proclamation will come as a surprise for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., whose executives have been touting their major lead in merger-advisory rankings, consistent with data compiled by Bloomberg.
“We feel really good about our position. We have an almost $300 billion lead in the league table at this point in the year, which is our largest lead ever at this point in the year,” Goldman President John Waldron said last month. “Hope I didn’t just jinx that.”
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Citigroup was nowhere near the top of the list in the first quarter, and has slipped further, to seventh place, in those rankings. Dealogic places the bank at fifth this year.
The company has been charting a rebound after Fraser moved her turnaround plan into top gear, with the stock returning more than 200% over the past three years. Citigroup poached top JPMorgan banker Vis Raghavan to turbo-charge its investment-banking business.
Still, even for Fraser, the top spot on merger rankings so soon would come as a welcome surprise.
