Citi Australia and New Zealand appoints Ben Connolly and Philippe Perzi as Co-Heads of Capital Markets and Advisory

18 March, 2025 — Citi Australia and New Zealand has today announced the appointments of Ben Connolly and Philippe Perzi as Co-Heads of Capital Markets and Advisory, subject to local regulatory approval.

Ben is currently Managing Director and Head of Real Estate for Citi in Australia and New Zealand. Ben has over 18 years of experience across Australia, Europe and the UK advising clients on mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions.

Philippe joins Citi from Goldman Sachs where he was Managing Director and Head of its Financial Institutions Group. Philippe has over 20 years of experience working across mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets and delivering leveraged and structured finance solutions to clients.

Ben and Philippe will report to Jan Metzger, Citi’s Head of Investment Banking for Asia Pacific and locally to Mark Woodruff, Citi Australia CEO. Both Ben and Philippe will be based in Sydney.

Commenting on the appointment, Mark Woodruff said “We are delighted to be promoting Ben to Co-Lead the Capital Markets and Advisory business and to welcome Philippe to Citi. Our Capital Markets and Advisory team is a leader in the market, with deep bench strength. This appointment reflects our continued strong investment into our business to ensure we are delivering the best of Citi to our clients.”

Jan Metzger added, “Australia is a critically important market for the Citi franchise. The appointment of both Ben and Philippe is reflective of our continued investment in, and growth aspirations for our Australian business. Under their leadership, Citi is well positioned to capitalise on the strong momentum we are seeing in our Australian and Asia Pacific franchise.”

Citi Australia and New Zealand’s Capital Markets and Advisory business has had a strong start to the year, acting as financial advisor to Charter Hall Group on the takeover of Hotel Property Investments and financial advisor to Carlyle on its bid for a majority stake in Waste Services Group. Additionally, Citi is currently acting as defense advisor to Insignia Financial.

Within the first three months of 2025, Citi’s debt capital markets business has helped Australian and New Zealand issuers raise US$9bn in offshore markets, including the largest Australian bank US$ trade since 2022.

Retirement of Tony Osmond

After a long and distinguished career across the Citi Australia franchise and more recently as Vice Chair for Japan, Australia and North Asia, Tony Osmond has informed us of his decision to retire from Citi. Tony will remain with Citi until 2026 to ensure a smooth transition to the new leadership.

Tony joined Citi as Head of Banking, Capital Markets and Advisory for Australia and New Zealand in 2010, before moving into a Vice Chair role in 2022. During this time Tony has been a valued leader and an outstanding contributor to the growth of the Advisory business.