Citigroup's energy team added 27, plans for more next year

Stephen Trauber, global head of energy investment banking for Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C)

While waiting to catch a plane to China, Citigroup Inc.?s global head of energy said the banking giant?s Houston energy group has grown at the quick clip predicted last year ? and that the bank has plans to add a few more bankers to the team.

Around this time last year, Steve Trauber, vice chairman and global chief of energy in Houston for New York-based Citigroup (NYSE: C), told the HBJ the bank leased a 50,000 square foot space in a Houston skyscraper to accommodate 100 energy investment banking employees. The group hauled its base from the Williams Tower, where some employees still are, to BG Group Place late last year.

Well, here?s an update.

?We?re actually tight on space, now,? Trauber told me last week. ?I never thought we would be this tight, this soon.?

He said Citigroup?s Houston energy team has added about 27 new employees in a slow trickle this year, and in one specific area of the business ? he didn?t tell me which ? he plans to add three or four more early next year. The group has kept growing in Houston as energy ?has been a very good business within investment banking and the financial-services side, and there has been a tremendous amount of activity in North America.?

He added, ?Because of the global nature of our business, a lot of international investments into the U.S. has truly positioned us well.?

Trauber?s team makes up one of the largest energy investment banking groups in the U.S. In 2010, when Trauber was hired to lead it, a banking recruiter remarked to Bloomberg that Trauber ?put (Swiss bank) UBS (AG) on the map in oil and gas investment banking,? and that Citigroup hiring him and other bankers was ?one more sign that Citigroup is emerging from its defensive crouch of the past two years.?

Collin Eaton covers banking, finance and securities.

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