By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON (Reuters) - Senior Citigroup (N:C) manager Andrew Thursfield said former trader Tom Hayes, on trial on Libor interest-rate rigging charges, did not make a good impression on their first meeting in London in 2009, a court heard on Wednesday.
Hayes met Thursfield and Citigroup treasury staff while on a trip to London in October 2009 shortly after his appointment with the company in Tokyo, the court heard.
Hayes complained about the telephone models used by the company and arrived late at one meeting during the trip with another senior Citigroup manager, Steve Compton, unshaven and with his shirt hanging out, a jury in London was told.
Hayes, a former yen derivatives trader, is charged by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) with eight counts of conspiracy to defraud between Aug. 2006 and Sept. 2010, a criminal offence that can carry a jail sentence of 10 years.
The SFO alleges Hayes was a central figure in a conspiracy with 25 staff from at least 10 banks and brokerages to rig Libor, the London interbank offered rate, used to price an estimated $450 trillion (287 trillion pounds) of financial contracts from derivatives to loans for households and individuals worldwide.
The 35-year-old Briton has pleaded not guilty and is expected to lay out his defence next month in the trial - the first after a seven-year global investigation by authorities worldwide - which is scheduled to last well into August.
'TOTAL WIDE BOY'
Thursfield, the head of the European risk treasury desk in London, was called as a witness for the prosecution.
A transcript of a recorded telephone conversation on Oct. 9, 2009 between Thursfield and his boss Compton, the global head of the risk treasury and repo desk, was shown to the jury.
In it, Thursfield said that following Hayes' 2009 London trip, he had been sceptical about claims made by the trader's Citigroup boss in Tokyo, Chris Cecere, about his ability to understand the market.
Thursfield described Hayes as "obviously very aggressive and active in the market".
"However, it was, the way he was sort of talking about his, openly talking about, yeah he just calls his cash guys and asks them to move the Libors up or down...it just seems a bit..." Thursfield says on the lengthy call.
When Compton asked in the call whether Hayes appeared to be suggesting he would like that kind of relationship with Thursfield, Thursfield replied: "Oh 100 percent."
Thursfield said in the call that Hayes came across as a "total wide boy" and "barrow boy" - derogatory British terms often used to mean a street-wise and somewhat roguish person who lives by their wits - whom he would not have hired and who expressed himself in a blatant and "risky" way.
Quoting Hayes, he said: "'I'm 40 percent of the market. Yeah I did this. Yeah I know these people, yeah' - it's all a bit, you know, very much barrow boy type of thing..."
Hayes was at Citigroup for 10 months when the bank commenced an investigation, and he was later fired, the court has heard.