League fables
Citi tops a league table that doesn’t exist.
Good morning.
“Wow! CITI was ranked Number 1 in topping M&A Advisory Market by Value in Q1,” Donald Trump posted last night, congratulating “Jane F and ALL of her great people” on a “BIG comeback”.
The trouble is finding the table. Citi was nowhere near the top in the first quarter, according to Bloomberg, which has it seventh this year, Dealogic fifth and LSEG seventh on full-year volumes, with Goldman Sachs sitting on a roughly USD300 billion lead on its own numbers.
The strongest clue is a TV banner. Trump’s post landed minutes after a banner during a Fox interview with Citi banker Leon Kalvaria credited the bank with topping M&A in power-sector deals.
Bankers across Wall St were mystified (read filthy) and the stock enjoyed a pop of more than 1% before closing in the red. “That’s one way to make it at the top of the league tables. Just get Trump to make it up,” said one.
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Shares in insurance broking and underwriting group Steadfast rocketed on Wednesday after it received a conditional, non-binding indicative offer of $6 a share in cash from a consortium of Dragoneer Investment Group and Amwins Group, a 51.9% premium to Tuesday’s close that implies an enterprise value of about $7.7 billion.
