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Citigroup plans equities trading office in Moscow

Citigroup Inc, the world's largest financial services company, plans to open a stock sales, trading and research office in Moscow near the end of the year to provide clients with more access to Russian equities.

Stuart Harley, who runs emerging market equity sales at Citigroup in London, will manage the office, which will open in the fourth quarter, said spokesman Jeremy Hughes.

Citigroup, which already has consumer banking, credit card, corporate finance and fixed-income operations in Russia, employs 600 people in Moscow.

Wall Street's biggest banks, which lost billions after Russia defaulted on domestic debt in August 1998, are adding staff in Russia as the longest boom since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, rising stock and bond markets and domestic takeovers drive demand for advice and trading.

"Russia is a priority market to us and we are excited at the prospect of further growing our business there," Jim Cowles, Citigroup's head of European equi-ties, said in the statement.

Earlier this month Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest US securities firm, said it plans to expand in Russia by applying for licenses to trade local bonds, stocks and currency instruments. Merrill Lynch, the largest securities firm by capital, said in February that it would open a Moscow office.

UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG, Europe's No. 1 and No. 3 banks by assets, both already have stakes in Russian joint ventures.

Moscow has leapfrogged New York to become the home to more billionaires than any other city, according to Forbes magazine.

The new office "will facilitate greater access to Russian equities for Citigroup's global institutional client base, and will also bring the benefits of Citigroup's unparalleled global equities platform to Russian institutional investors," the company said in the e-mailed statement.

Citigroup's corporate and investment bank first opened in Russia in 1993.
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