Citigroup hires PwC's China managing partner

HONG KONG, Mar 1 (Reuters) Citigroup Inc., the world's biggest financial services company, said on Wednesday it had hired the China managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to bolster its Chinese investment banking team.

Citigroup, which has recently lost two of its top Chinese bankers, said Albert Ng joins the bank as a managing director based in Shanghai and reporting to Mark Renton, its head of Asia Pacific investment banking.

Francis Leung, Citigroup's Asia investment banking chairman and a long-time China dealmaker, is stepping down from the firm while Wei Christianson, its former China chairwoman, left the company in January to join rival Morgan Stanley.

Renton has been made acting head of Citigroup's China investment banking business and Ng, who has more than 20 years experience in financial services, will be responsible for helping Citigroup win some big mainland IPO mandates.

Citigroup has missed out on recent mega-deals such as the .2 billion listing of China Construction Bank and the upcoming billion IPO of Bank of China Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and a group of other banks are also pitching next week for the billion IPO of Industrial&Commercial Bank of China, but Citigroup was not invited to the proceedings, sources said.

REUTERS SD HT1707