Following the announcement of the merged entity's regional investment banking positions last week, the next batch of positions are in the process of being rolled out. And as expected, JP Morgan bankers have proved their resilience in winning most of the top jobs.
However, where previously JP Morgan housed credit markets under investment banking, the group has now been split out on its own, mirroring a structure already employed by Chase. This has been designed to quickly facilitate the creation of a one stop shop for Asian credit products to emulate and rival the recent efforts of Citigroup, which bought Citicorp's loans division under Salomon Smith Barney's fixed income division earlier this summer.
At the top of the new structure sits JP Morgan's former global head of derivatives Bart Broadman, who in addition to running Japan, will also oversee the Asia Pacific Markets group. Directly beneath him and with equal billing, will be two co-heads of credit origination for non-Japan Asia, a Japan head of credit origination and one head of sales, trading and research.
JP Morgan's head of debt capital markets, Marc Jones, wins one co-head role, with Chase's Paul Bartlett the other. Welshman Jones, who has received many internal plaudits for creating a strong team that has revived JP Morgan's fortunes at a time of few debt mandates, will oversee the bond markets. Australian Bartlett, who moved from Sydney to Hong Kong at the end of July to run syndicated loans for Chase, will fulfill a similar role working alongside Jones.
Anirudda (Andy) Roy, who transferred to Hong Kong from JP Morgan New York earlier this year to run structured finance, will now oversee credit origination in Japan. Bob Fernandez, Chase's former head of debt capital markets, who also transferred from New York late last year, will oversee sovereign debt origination group under Jones.
Fernandezes boss and head of Asian fixed income, Chris Nicholas, becomes head of sales, trading and research. Formerly, Chase had an additional management layer to JP Morgan in the form of its regional fixed income heads. These roles have now been abolished under the new structure and Nicholas returns to his trading roots with a vastly expanded team. Widely liked for his down to earth humour, he also ranks as one of Asia's most experienced fixed income professionals and will remain based in Hong Kong, where he will be joined by JP Morgan's current Tokyo-based trading team.
From their current base in Hong Kong's International Finance Centre, JP Morgan staff say that they will be transferred to Chase's Exchange Square headquarters before Christmas. And yet while the speed of the integration process in Asia has surprised many involved, participants say that it has been relatively painless compared to London, which is next on the global agenda and houses 21 different offices between the three banks.
Because Asia also embraces overlapping emerging markets and investment grade jurisdictions, there will be a number of different reporting lines. In addition to reporting to Broadman, the three heads - Jones, Bartlett and Nicholas, will also separately report to the heads of global emerging markets and Europe/Asia credit origination. In New York, JP Morgan banker Mochtar Fall runs global emerging markets.
In London, Jones will report to JP Morgan bond supremo Bruce Carnegie-Brown, who co-heads Europe/Asia credit origination with Chase's Tom Canning, whom Bartlett will report to. Nicholas, by contrast, will have a direct line into JP Morgan's Lebanese head of sales, trading and research, Fawzi Kyriakos-Saad.
