Citi's new global head of STIRT trading is calling for a wealth tax
If you want to become rich, Citigroup's short term interest rate trading (STIRT) desk is a good place to start. It was here that Gary Stevenson, the Citi trader who retired aged 27 in 2014, worked. It was here that Stevenson made $2m+ in bonuses and here that Stevenson now says he had a revelation that he was surrounded by multimillionaires who'd hoarded the wealth and left the rest of society in a state of impoverishment.
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It's a viewpoint that Citi's new head of STIRT trading might not disagree with. Stevenson is a member of "Millionaires for Humanity," so is Akshay Singal, who was promoted to run Citi's STIRT desk earlier this month.
Citi didn't respond to a request to comment on Singal's new role or on his calls for higher taxation. On the Millionaires for Humanity website, Singal, who's worked for Citi since 2008, says he's seen, "disproportionate wealth inequality, not only in the West but across the world," and that a wealth tax is the best way to prevent the inequality from growing. "There is more and more support for it, especially from wealth-owners who can clearly see the negative impact of inequality on society as a whole," he adds.
Those wealth owners almost certainly include some of the people Singal manages on the STIRT desk. Citi sources say that one of the desk's biggest earners in the post-Stevenson era is Charan Dhinsa, a STIRT trader who's worked at Citi since 2008 and who, like Stevenson, graduated with a first class degree from the London School of Economics. Also like Stevenson, Dhinsa has been trading the euro book. By apparent virtue of his profitability, Dhinsa was promoted to managing director (MD) in 2020. Singal, who was previously the EMEA head of STIRT managed Dhinsa for two years while only being a director himself.
Citi's former global head of STIRT trading, Marcus Satha, left in January to focus on a children's book charity he founded.
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