Morning Coffee: Citi VP blames menopause for comment about "nightmare" colleagues. Jane Street's jeopardy

Did London-based Anne Watson, a senior vice president (SVP) in Citi's finance solutions group, declare that working with Indians is a "nightmare" during an internal Citi job interview, or did she not?

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Watson cannot remember. In court filings, she said, “I did not deny making the comments, as I simply could not recall as a result of my long Covid-19 and menopausal symptoms.” Bloomberg reports that Watson's symptoms included brain fog, memory loss and strange behaviour. 

55-year-old Watson is in court because Citi subsequently fired her for alleged gross misconduct. She says she was "shocked" by this and is accusing the bank of sex, age and disability discrimination. Citi says it's done nothing wrong.

If Watson's case succeeds, it might give menopausal women and people with COVID brain fog permission to say whatever they like at work. Watson's complete statement during the online job interview was allegedly, "The project failed because I was working with a team of Indians. No offense to you, Kapil, but you know what Indians are like to work with it’s a nightmare.” Citi promptly placed her in the waiting room, and when Kapil reappeared she allegedly next said, “Now it’s your chance, Kapil, to get me back.” 

Watson has forgotten that she ever said any of this, but says she's really not the sort of person who would blame a "culture or country" for a project's failure. She also says she worked for Citi for 12 years and suggests the bank could cut her some slack. Citi is having none of it and says the menopause and brain fog wouldn't make you do this kind of thing anyway.  

Vis Raghavan, Citi's head of banking, is Indian. So is Anand Selvakesari, its COO. Like most banks, Citi operates a large technology team in India, where it reportedly has 32,000 people - its second-largest workforce outside the US. It's become increasingly hard for banks to hire good Indian technologists in recent years and there are suggestions that India-based employees across financial services can be abused by colleagues in London and New York, who expect them to work long hours with limited employment protections. 

Separately, electronic trading firm Jane Street's own Indian issue risks spiralling out of control. 

The Financial Times reported yesterday that SEBI, the Indian regulator, is now investigating Jane Street's wider trading in the Sensex index of 30 top Indian stocks and the Nifty50 index of the 50 largest companies on the Indian stock exchange. As suggested by Alex Gerko at XTX, regulators in other countries are also expected to take an interest in Jane Street's activities. 

Jane Street denies any wrongdoing and is preparing a detailed response. The FT, however, notes that Jane Street has circa $50bn in capital, but that any fines could sap that. More concerningly, investment banks often automatically review clients that are under investigation by regulators, and this could hamper Jane Street's ability to trade. Citadel Securities must be very happy indeed. 

Meanwhile...

Now that Jane Street is banned from trading Indian options, the value traded - based on options premiums - has slumped to a 40-year low. (Bloomberg) 

Alex Gerko says Jane Street could prove that it's done nothing wrong by reducing the size of its trades. “Imagine reducing all sizes in your strategy by a factor of a 100. If it works better than before (per unit of risk/in terms of margins) then it looks legit. If it stops working altogether after scaling down then question your life choices.” (Bloomberg) 

Citadel Securities bought Morgan Stanley's options market making firm. It's not clear whether this also involves its people. Morgan Stanley accounted for 6% of the US options market making business. (Bloomberg) 

Jamie Dimon says that he might consider running for president if Eric Trump does. (Financial Times) 

Brevan Howard closed a fund run by its star trader, Ville Helske, in Abu Dhabi as it locks in money for longer. Three years ago, all its money was on a three-month notice period. Now, 70% is in classes that take two years to redeem. Herske was running a $379m global volatility fund that "lacked scale". (Bloomberg) 

Ben Wallace is now co-head of mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs in the Americas, alongside Avinash Mehrotra and Brian Haufrect. (Bloomberg) 

Russian investment bank VTB Capital paid a handful of London employees £3.3m in the first half of 2025. (Financial News) 

Darron Blewitt, a "workaholic" recruiter, had a heart attack and received £200k in compensation after his bosses sacked him for the inconvenience. (The Times)  

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