Citi promotes Deepak Sharma as Head of International Wealth Management Division

This will extend his responsibilities for the Asia Pacific and Middle East region to include Europe and Latin America.

In Citi Global Wealth Management International, Mr Sharma will be managing an organisation that spans five continents, employs more than 2500 banking professionals, serves about 400,000 high net worth individuals and families and covers two businesses:

·Citi Smith Barney provides financial planning services underpinned by a brokerage platform for a clientele with less than USD 10 million in net worth.

·Citi Private Bank provides a holistic private banking service covering all aspects of wealth management for ultra high net worth individuals and families with more than USD 10 million in net worth.

The Global Wealth Management International business accounted for USD 1.4 billion in revenue and a net income of USD 234 million in 2006.

A thirty-year veteran of Citi, Mr. Sharma will continue to be based in Singapore and continue to report to Sallie Krawcheck, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Citi Global Wealth Management.

In the past, Citi Global Wealth Management operated its Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific and Middle East businesses as three separate entities.

With a unified leadership structure in place, Mr Sharma's mandate is to build and expand Citi's international wealth management franchise, in the process growing the company's market share in the lucrative wealth management sector across this vast geography, which includes some of the world's most dynamic economies where the rates of wealth creation far outstrip those of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development economies.

For example, markets such as China, India, Korea, Brazil, Russia and others from central and eastern Europe, which feature prominently in the Global Wealth Management International franchise, remain largely untapped in terms of their wealth management potential.

Mr Sharma said: "I am very excited about the opportunity to grow this business at a time when there is tremendous optimism about the wealth management industry in many of these emerging economies. I think in five to 10 years' time, the wealth management landscape will be quite remarkable in terms of the size of the wealth market, the talent involved and the sophistication of products and services."

"I believe that in the future our business distribution will be spread more evenly among many countries. The long-term vision is for the International business of Citi Global Wealth Management to rank alongside the U.S. business in terms of size and capabilities."

According to the Merrill Lynch Cap Gemini World Wealth Report 2006, there is an estimated USD 23 trillion in wealth among 5.8 million high net worth individuals (defined at those with at least USD 1 million in net assets) in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Europe and Latin America regions. This is expected to grow to about USD 30 trillion by 2010, while the high net worth population is expected to number 8 million.

The study also revealed that all ten of the fastest growing countries in terms of the high net worth population were from outside the United States - namely (in descending order) South Korea, India, Russia, South Africa, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Brazil.