Aftab Ahmed has been appointed chair of CTL Citi and CEO for Taiwan, taking over from Paulus Mok, who retired on January 1. The bank announced the appointment via a release sent to media.
Ahmed joined Citi in 1975 as an executive trainee and has since held a number of senior roles including Citi country officer (CCO) and CEO for Egypt, CCO and CEO for Hungary, and most recently, COO for the Philippines.
He earlier worked for Citi in Taiwan as local head of the bank’s Global Consumer Banking Operations and Technology (O&T) division, and thus takes on the new role with a good understanding and knowledge of the local market, the announcement detailed.
Commenting on the bank’s performance in the domestic market over the past year, a spokesperson told FinanceAsia: “We saw strong client-led growth across our institutional businesses, from both local corporates via our global network, and multinational corporations with operations on the ground.”
The contact explained that such growth came in addition to that experienced across the bank’s Markets and Services business, which offers specialist capabilities such as cash management, treasury, trade and hedging. The bank expects to see “continued issuance in global and local capital markets from leading [Taiwanese] corporates” to support regional growth ambitions.
According to EY Taiwan, the country saw a total of 45 firms raise NT$35.73 billion ($1.17 billion) across its domestic exchanges in 2022, finishing 60.7% and 11.35% above 2021 in terms of number of issuance and volume raised.
Citi opened its first representative office in Taiwan in 1964 and its first branch in Taipei in 1965. Today, it serves approximately 700 multinational corporations, 1,500 SMEs, and 100 local corporates.
The bank has helped local companies raise “several billions of dollars” over the last year, the spokesperson said, highlighting a NT$7.3 billion loan for pharmaceutical company, Lotus, and the sale of $425 million worth of global depository receipts (GDR) for Taiwan Cement, as notable transactions.
In January last year, Citi signed a sale agreement with Singapore-headquartered DBS Bank for its consumer banking franchise in Taiwan. Citi has been “smoothly moving forward” with the divestiture, Ahmed said in the release.
DBS agreed to pay Citi a cash consideration for the net assets of the acquired businesses, in addition to a NTD19.8 billion premium. Citi said the transaction would result in the release of approximately $800 million of allocated tangible common equity. According to Citi’s third quarter 2022 earnings results presentation, the bank expects to close the transaction in the second half of this year.
In 2022, Citi won FA’s Best International Bank in Taiwan award for the 26th consecutive year.
