Citi Private Bank has lured three executives in the San Francisco Bay area from J.P. Morgan, including two who were overseeing billions of dollars in client assets.
The New York-based private bank announced Monday afternoon that Chad Thomas, Jay Backstrand and Derek Prill were joining and creating a new team. The new group will focus on ultra high net worth clients and report to Hoyt Gier, the head of Citi Private Bank’s Western Region – North, according to a statement from Citi.
Both Thomas and Backstrand will join Citi Private Bank in October. Backstrand will be based in Palo Alto and Thomas will split time between San Francisco and Palo Alto. Prill’s employment is effective immediately and he will be based in San Francisco.
J.P. Morgan Private Bank declined to comment on the trio leaving.
“They are really top producers and perhaps most importantly, really quality people,” Gier said. He added that finding talented bankers as "embedded" in their local area is hard.
Thomas and Backstrand are rooted in the San Francisco area. They both went to grade school in Palo Alto and attended Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Later, as managing directors and long-tenured bankers at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, they managed multi-billion dollar portfolios for clients and combined for approximately $30 million in annualized revenue, Gier said.
Prior to being a banker associate at J.P. Morgan, Prill held a director-level role at Cleantech Group Inc. where he was responsible for events and partnerships. He also spent four years as a relationship officer with HSBC in its Domestic Private Bank and took part in a rotation program with its Global Private Bank.
The new team brings the total number of private bankers and support staff to 15, up from only seven in the Bay Area and Seattle when Gier joined 15 months ago. He said the expansion is another example of the private bank's commitment to the region, which along with New York City, it has identified as key markets it intends to pursue further.
Citi Private Bank offers customized private banking, most often for high net worth individuals in need of services in capital markets, trust and estate planning, financing for aircraft and advisory on art and sports teams. Globally, it has about $390 billion in assets under management. The private bank has 48 offices and clients in 130 countries.
