If you’re an M&A banker, you need to be prepared to move around. Take Wes Walraven, currently global co-head of industrials at Citi. Walraven started his career with First Boston in New York in 1986. He moved to London in 1990, to Hong Kong in 1992, to Los Angeles (with Smith Barney) in 1995, and to New York City again in 2010. Now, Walraven has manifested himself in London (again).
Walraven has been at Canary Wharf since November 1. In a memo sent at the time of his arrival, Citi said he will continue as global co-head of industrials, and that, ‘the management structure of Industrials will otherwise remain unchanged’.
That, at least, was the plan.
Unfortunately, however, Citi already had an EMEA head of industrials in the form of Koen van Velsen, whom it hired from J.P. Morgan last year. Walraven was instrumental in the recruitment of Van Velsen, stating at the time that the EMEA industrials market was seen as one of Citi’s, “largest wallet opportunities”.
With Walraven in London, Van Velsen’s position looked a little uncertain. Sure enough, in a memo sent today, Citi has just announced that Van Velsen is to become co-global head of autos along with Chris Blake and Christian Kames.
No reason was given for Van Velsen’s move. However Dealogic’s ranking for industrials M&A offers an indication for its impetus: Citi ranked 6th in EMEA for industrials M&A in 2014; so far this year, it ranks 11th.
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