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SCMP Reporter

CITIBANK is about to make another reshuffle of senior management in Asia following the recent announcement that its head of corporate banking in Hong Kong would be replaced.

The general manager of consumer banking in Hong Kong, Tim Kelley, will be transferred to London, to head the bank's retail operations for Africa, Middle East and eastern Europe.

He will be replaced by Aziz Rajkotwala, head of retail banking of Citibank in the Philippines.

  Mr Kelley, 54, took up his position in Hong Kong in 1992.

 Citibank announced about a week ago that its high-profile country corporate officer Antony Leung Kam-chung would take over the bank's Asia-Pacific operations. He takes up the position later this month.

 Coincidentally, the replacements for Mr Leung and Mr Kelley are from the bank's Philippines branch.

 Stephen Long, Mr Leung's successor, was the country corporate officer for the Philippines before his Hong Kong appointment.

 A bank spokesman confirmed the decision to transfer Mr Kelley, saying that a formal announcement would be made when start dates for the appointees were finalised.

 'We will send out formal notice when there is an effective date for these appointments,' she said.

 The decision to move Mr Leung, who had been in investment banking for more than a decade, into private banking business, has already puzzled many outsiders.

 Besides his bright banking career, Mr Leung is active in public service.

  His long list of public service appointments includes being chairman of the University Grants Committee, a member of the Exchange Fund Advisory Committee, and on the board of the Provisional Airport Authority.

 Although Mr Leung will be stationed both in Hong Kong and Singapore, he intends to retain all his public service positions.

 Further reshuffling of senior staff before 1997 has sent the banking community wild with speculation.

 Bankers believed Mr Kelley's Hong Kong role was to have been his last before retirement. They were surprised that he would leave the territory before 1997.

 Citibank runs the largest branch network among all foreign banks, catering for the middle to upper-class market.

 'It is an interesting strategy to transfer those staff with expertise on China and Hong Kong out of the territory at this time,' one banker said.

The general perception is that the bank, while actively expanding in China, has tried to cap its exposure in Hong Kong.

 'Maybe that's the bank's greater China strategy, considering Hong Kong as part of China,' a banker said.

 With a limited capital allocation from its headquarters, expansion in China means that the bank's Hong Kong business might not grow as fast as it would have done, he said.



Citibank reshuffle of old hands leaves industry baffled