Finance
How Citizens Financial positioned itself to scoop up private bankers from First Republic
Good morning. I think it’s safe to say we’ve all heard a quote or anecdote about the benefits of always being prepared for an opportunity. I’ve found that philosophy to be true, and I think Citizens Financial Group provides a tangible example.
Citizens, headquartered in Providence, R.I., has $222 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, and is the 14th-largest bank in the U.S. I recently had a conversation with John F. Woods, vice chair and CFO at Citizens, for the latest edition of Fortune’s Future of Finance series.
“For a number of years, one of our strategic objectives has been to be able to serve high-net-worth individuals,” he told me. “We did that a while back when we acquired a company called Clarfeld. That created capabilities to provide advice to the high-net-worth customer segments. But we had been unable to scale that platform because of the need to have enough bankers to interact with this customer segment. The opportunity arose when First Republic started to get into trouble last spring.”
First Republic Bank was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation on May 1, 2023, with the FDIC appointed as receiver.
“We had an opportunity to bid on acquiring First Republic,” Woods explained. “We didn’t win that bid—JPMorgan did. However, as part of that process, we became very attracted to the business model at First Republic. And a lot of the private bankers who worked at First Republic didn’t want to work at a very large bank—that’s the reason they worked at that bank in the first place.”
The conversation with a handful of people accelerated to about 150 people hired as private bankers to work in California, Boston, New York, and Florida, Woods said. The bank announced earlier this month the hiring of Michael Cherny as head of wealth management advisors and Tom Metzger as head of private wealth managers. Citizens has opened its first private-banking office in Boston and has plans to open additional offices in 2024, including in Palm Beach, Fla., and in Mill Valley, Calif., in the spring.
Woods expects the private bank is going to generate significant returns. “We just formally launched [the private bank] in the fourth quarter of 2023, and we have over a billion dollars of deposits already,” he told me.
During our conversation, Woods also talked about how the CFO role is changing: “The evolution of the CFO role over the past decade or more involves an intensifying expectation that the CFO is a partner to the CEO and to the business unit leaders on deriving strategy.”
You can read the complete Future of Finance interview here.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Cosmin Pitigoi was named CFO at Flywire Corp. (Nasdaq: FLYW), effective March 4. Pitigoi previously spent 20 years in finance leadership roles at PayPal and eBay, where he was most recently SVP in PayPal finance. While at eBay, Pitigoi held leadership roles across investor relations, business unit FP&A and treasury, and began his career in operational and finance roles at E-Trade and Barclays.
Michael Niggemann is going to step in as interim CFO at Lufthansa Group, effective May 7, in addition to his existing duties as a board member for the division of Personnel, Logistics, and Non-Hub Business. Current CFO Remco Steenbergen is one of four executives stepping down as the airline is “reshaping and realigning its executive board,” as stated in the announcement. The decision comes as the airline is moving away from the COVID-19 era, according to Lufthansa.
Big deal
While employers often rely on colleges as a principal supplier of professional talent, college is not a guarantee of labor market success, according to a new report by Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation.
Talent Disrupted: College Graduates, Underemployment, and the Way Forward finds that one of biggest risks students face is that their degree will not provide access to a college-level job. Today, only about half of bachelor’s degree graduates secure employment in a college-level job within a year of graduation, the research finds. Among the underemployed recent college graduates, the vast majority (88%), are severely “underemployed”—working in jobs that typically require only a high school education, or less, such as jobs in office support, retail sales, food service, and blue-collar roles in construction, transportation, and manufacturing.
Just 12% are moderately underemployed, for example, working in jobs that require some education or training beyond high school but less than a bachelor’s degree. The findings are based on dataset of 60 million workers in the United States, including approximately 10 million who has a terminal bachelor’s degree.
However, participation in internships makes a difference. There is a strong correlation between internships and college-level employment after graduation, according to the report. The odds of underemployment for graduates who had at least one internship are, on average, 48.5% lower than those who had no internships. The benefits associated with completing an internship are relatively strong across degree fields.
Going deeper
An updated report from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and AICPA & CIMA finds that the largest global companies are providing more detail about their sustainability reporting, and also are obtaining a greater scope of assurance on those disclosures. The study, which is an annual benchmark now including 2022 data, also found the use of varying sustainability standards and frameworks continues to make it difficult for investors, lenders, and other stakeholders to find consistent and comparable sustainability information.
Overheard
“If you don’t have everybody pretty much on board, you can have major countries not acting with a kind of cooperative sense; [then] they can make a real mess elsewhere.”
—Blackstone cofounder and CEO Stephen Schwarzman spoke at length about his fears on AI during a panel at the FII Priority Miami Summit, Fortune reported. He also argued that AI could help criminals that otherwise would not have been very bright.
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Finance
Car finance saga: Millions of motorists to find out how they will be compensated
Millions of motorists who were mis-sold a car loan will find out how they will be compensated, as the finance watchdog shares its final plans for an industry-wide scheme.
Final decisions on the long-awaited programme will be published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on Monday afternoon.
The regulator set out draft plans last year but it is likely to make several changes after receiving more than 1,000 responses to its consultation.
Under the latest proposals, the scheme will cover car finance agreements taken out between April 6 2007 and November 1 2024.
The FCA estimated that around 14 million deals, or 44% of all those made since 2007, were unfair and therefore eligible for compensation.
Consumers were estimated to be compensated an average of £700 per agreement, but it will be more or less depending on individual cases.
This was expected to come at a total cost of £11 billion to the industry, including the total payouts and the operational costs of running the scheme.
Craig Tebbutt, a financial health expert for Equifax UK, said: “It has previously been estimated that average compensation levels could be in the region of £700 per agreement but the final details around the scale, scope and timelines are expected to be confirmed on Monday.
“However, there is nothing to stop consumers checking their paperwork now and getting their details ready in the meantime.”
He said research by the credit reporting firm found that “many consumers don’t know how to check their eligibility and expect the process to be a hassle, with old or missing paperwork being a real barrier”.
Equifax has launched a car finance checker within its new app that lets people see a list of their past agreements and copy the details, with motorists encouraged to send a complaint to their lender using a template on the FCA’s website if they think they’re eligible for a payout.
Lenders and car finance providers had been challenging the FCA’s proposals with some raising concerns that the expected amount of compensation is too high and does not accurately reflect what customers lost.
On the other side, some consumer groups and MPs have argued that many motorists will be short-changed under the current plans.
The FCA has already announced some changes that it is making to the process since the proposals were unveiled last year.
This includes giving lenders more time to contact motor finance customers from when the scheme is officially launched.
But it is also aiming to streamline the process by allowing those due redress to accept it immediately without waiting for a final determination.
It thinks that this means million of people would receive compensation in 2026.
Finance
Abacus Global CEO on record 2025 growth – ICYMI
Abacus Global Management (NYSE:ABX) earlier this week reported record-setting financial and operational performance for 2025, highlighting strong momentum in the rapidly expanding life settlements market.
CEO Jay Jackson said the company delivered more than 100% year-over-year growth across key financial metrics, including EBITDA, adjusted net income, and gross results. He emphasized that beyond headline figures, the underlying operational activity demonstrated the strength of the platform.
Jackson noted that Abacus acquired more than 1,300 life insurance policies during the year and generated nearly $180 million in realized gains. The company also sold over 1,000 policies, underscoring the liquidity and scalability of its model. He added that more than $600 million in capital was deployed, enabling over 1,100 seniors to access value from previously illiquid assets.
“We’re helping clients find liquidity in assets they didn’t know had it — their life insurance policies,” Jackson said.
Jackson explained that life insurance policies are increasingly being recognized as a viable financial asset class.
Looking ahead, Jackson pointed to a substantial growth runway, noting that the total addressable market is approximately $14 trillion, while Abacus has only penetrated a small fraction of that opportunity. He suggested that ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty is driving investor demand for uncorrelated assets, positioning life settlements as an attractive alternative.
As a key catalyst for future growth, the company recently completed a minority investment in Manning & Napier, a long-established wealth and asset management firm. Jackson said the partnership provides access to more than 3,400 retail clients, many of whom may not yet be aware of the liquidity potential within their life insurance holdings.
He indicated that this strategic relationship could enhance origination volumes and contribute to continued record performance into 2026.
“We’re one of the largest originators, and our record numbers are an indicator of what’s coming next,” he said.
Finance
New Funding Models Needed As Global Health Faces Growing Financial Strain – Health Policy Watch
Global health is facing a funding crisis. Aid is shrinking, debt is rising, and the needs are only increasing. According to Christoph Benn of the Joep Lange Institute and Patrik Silborn of UNICEF Afghanistan, health systems will need to fundamentally rethink how they finance and sustain care.
On a recent episode of the Global Health Matters podcast, host Gary Aslanyan was joined by these two experts, who said “innovative finance” has become central to discussions on sustaining health systems.
Benn said that while the term is widely used, few agree on what it actually means. He described it as a “spectrum” of approaches, ranging from philanthropic grants and conditional funding to private-sector investment models that expect financial returns.
“It has frustrated us deeply that so many people are talking about innovative finance, but very few actually know what they’re talking about,” Benn said.
Silborn emphasised that these mechanisms should not be treated as one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, financing models must be designed around specific problems whether that means raising new funds, improving efficiency, or linking payments to measurable outcomes.
Drawing on his experience in Rwanda, Silborn described how a results-based funding model tied disbursements directly to performance, helping the country to maintain progress against major diseases despite reduced funding.
Both experts stressed that private-sector engagement requires a clear understanding of incentives.
“Private corporations are not charities,” Benn said. They can, however, contribute through marketing partnerships, technical expertise, or investment models that align financial returns with social outcomes.
Looking ahead, Benn pointed to targeted taxes and debt swaps as among the most scalable tools. Still, both warned that innovative finance is not a substitute for public responsibility.
“It only works when it is designed to solve real problems in specific contexts,” Benn said, underscoring that strong systems and governance remain essential to any lasting solution.
Listen to the full episode >>
Read more about Global Health Matters podcasts on Health Policy Watch >>
Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast.
Combat the infodemic in health information and support health policy reporting from the global South. Our growing network of journalists in Africa, Asia, Geneva and New York connect the dots between regional realities and the big global debates, with evidence-based, open access news and analysis. To make a personal or organisational contribution click here.
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