Ivo Distelbrink departs Citi for Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Ivo Distelbrink, Citi's head of treasury and trade solutions for Asia-Pacific and Japan, has left the bank and will start at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in March.

Citi confirmed his departure but would not comment on who his replacement will be except to say that it will be announced "soon". Sridhar Kanthadai, managing director and Asia-Pacific chief operating officer of Citi global transaction services, will be acting treasury and trade solutions head in the interim.

Distelbrink will join Bank of America Merrill Lynch as Asia head of global treasury services, BoA Merrill said. He will be based in Hong Kong and report to London-based Joel Van Dusen, deputy head of global corporate banking.

A representative of BoA Merrill said Distelbrink will work on "developing and implementing an integrated regional treasury business" for the institution in the region. This is part of a larger build-out of the bank's corporate banking business in Asia-Pacific, the representative explained.

Distelbrink's departure comes as Citi continues to recover from the loss of confidence in the bank that was prompted by Lehman Brothers' September 2008 collapse and the US government's bailout of Citi later the same year. While annual revenues for its global transaction services division globally fell last year, in Asia net profit grew 3% to $1.2 billion.