As the party’s party ended for Wall Street Bank’s Málaga experiment

In 2022, when younger investment bankers complained about Burnout from a record traction boom, Citigroup had a solution to bring and retain a new talent: a better working life balance worked on the coast of the sun in Spain.

The United States Bank hired 27 analysts to work from a newly opened office in Málaga, a city favored by tourists and Spaniards for its cocktail of Sol, Sea, Restaurants and Bars, promising 8 -hour days and free weekends.

Citi’s rivals labeled it as an advertising acrobatics that would do little to change culture in Wall Street. But Manolo Falcó, then the world banking co-head of investment bank, insisted “this is not a trick.”

Less than three years later, the office is closed and most of the staff moved to London. A good number of employees have been let go, as the Sun is set out in an initiative designed to separate from the traditional working conditions of younger analysts that do much of the thick work in the investment bank.

The former employees who worked at the Málaga de Citi office, as well as those involved in the project, say that the reality differs in the bank’s pitch, with many long hours working in the hope of gaining coveted roles in cities like London and Paris.

“This flexibility that was marketed as the core of the offer was not really respected,” said a former employee based in Málaga. “If you want to be successful and move -you could not do it without doing the same working hours as the people there.”

The project was conceived by a trio of Citi executives: Nacho Gutiérrez-Orrantia, who at that time was the head of the investment bank and the capital markets of the Emea de Citi; María Díaz del Río, Chief of Staff of this business; and hawk.

The team looked at different countries, including Portugal, Poland and the Czech Republic, but landed in Spain, encouraged by the mayor of the Málaga business approach.

Each of the analysts contracted with more than 3,000 applicants was assigned to one of the teams in the London industry. If they worked well at the end of a period of two years, Málaga could be a springboard for a job in the city.

The process was largely managed by del Río, who helped to assign junior bankers to different teams, and a senior manager was on the ground to manage shifts so that analysts did not work long hours.

But the former employees say that the promise of a job in London, where they could be in the heart of the action, made them feel that they had to work more hours to stand out of their peers.

“Many of Malaga’s employees were miserable,” said a person who knew the initiative. “There were many promises, but little progression.”

Citi said that his “emphasis on promoting colleague mobility efforts and the integration of our hubs” was “evident in the successful applications by many of our Málaga colleagues for the positions of our London and Paris hubs.” The bank has not specified how many of Málaga employees moved to other locations.

The youngest analysts in Spain say they had more flexibility, but for those who wanted to move on it was a case of working the same hours as their London counterparts while winning half their salary.

Citi analysts in Málaga said they were offered an initial $ 55,000 salary, while colleagues from large financial centers like London and New York are an amount of more than $ 100,000.

“It is very subjective to the job you did,” an employee said. “The more you are ready to commit to the cause, the more projects you have.”

If Malaga employees were not ready to make available until the early hours of the morning, the most demanding mandates may not be assigned, and this could scare their chances of moving, they added.

The banks have been affected by attracting and retaining talent, especially during the offer of the offer that continued to fall in the pandemic when the younger employees complained about the combustion and the weeks of work of 100 hours.

The youngest bankers of Goldman Sachs described “inhuman conditions” in a presentation cover that triggered a large number of new initiatives, some of which included at least one weekend or a limit on the amount of hours that employees could register.

But a better balance between working life among junior employees is from the requirements of investment banking where the registered hours and hard work is usually the currency to win a promotion.

An employee of Citi in Malaga who moved to London called the culture within the “truly special” office because he had gathered young people of different nationalities who wanted to do well.

“I will probably never get to work in an environment like () I arrived there,” the person said again.

But the disadvantage of a new initiative at the age of twenty-five, launched shortly before the executive director Jane Fraser kicked off a huge restructuring of the bank, was not the lack of supervision of the distracted citi managers.

The departure of Del Río as part of the restructuring in 2024 meant that there was no one to supervise the group and Málaga’s employees were forgotten. “He had his cons, without the elderly,” said an old employee.

When the office first opened in the summer of 2022, there was an office manager who supervised the class of analysts who stayed for almost a year, they said. Then there was a revolving door of the elderly who entered and left the office and there was a long stretch where there was no higher presence.

“We had a six -month period where we were completely forgotten,” the former employee said.

“When there was no manager, it was pure anarchy, there were people who would not see for months, the morale was so low,” they added. There was poor office in the office, as it was becoming increasingly clear that quoting it was likely to close it and some employees who left for other jobs were not replaced.

Citi said in a statement last week that the decision to close the office was part of its strategy to “simplify the company and make improvements in the operation”.

Those involved say that the Malaga office was a victim of the Bora Bora project, the name of the internal code used for the important restructuring of Citi. With the rice no longer on the bench and both falcon as Gutiérrez-Orrantia on different roles, there was no one to support the cause.

“People lost their focus because of (restructuring) and without this strength by promoting -the one forward, who supports this?” said another person involved with the program. “The concept was good, it was a bad execution.”

For many Málaga -based analysts, the Sunshine Coast was a stoppage for better work in London. But for those who hoped that the investment bank could offer something different, Citi’s proposition only put a plaster in a major problem.

One of the employees said, “They sold us the dream, but the reality was much more different.”