JPMorgan announced yesterday (April 27) that it has poached Jing Ulrich from Deutsche Bank to take up a newly created position as Head of Markets for China. Ulrich was previously head of research at Deutsche, but will cross over the wall into the markets division for her new role at JPMorgan - dealing with both the buy and the sell side.
As such she will be based in the equities division and report to Nick Andrews, head of Asia Pacific Equities. However, since her new post will embrace all of JPMorgan's product offerings, she will also partner closely with Co-Heads of Asia Credit and Rates, Ki-Myung Hong and Chester Kam.
Over the past year, the US investment bank has already created similar positions in Australia, India and Japan. By doing so, it believes it can simultaneously position its products with both the investor and issuer community. In marketing China, Ulrich will have a strategic role providing investment ideas to international investors, as well as an interface with domestic corporates and the government.
"The idea is to put JPMorgan in the middle of any dialogue between an issuer and investor whether it be on the investment banking side, securities side, or credit and rates side," says one banker.
Other investment banks have similar teams that provide corporate access services, but the job is normally seen as more of a logistics one - setting up meetings for investors with corporates, organizing conferences and roadshows. It is increasingly viewed as the third leg of a full equities service, alongside research and broking.
Ulrich's responsibilities, on the other hand, are wider and more sales driven. Internally she is now viewed as the most senior China banker after Charles Li, head of China investment banking. Before she joined Deutsche Bank, she spent many years at CLSA where she developed the group's China equities research franchise.
JPMorgan also announced yesterday that it has appointed Michael Steinberg as head of Asia Pacific sales in North America. From his base in New York, he will be responsible for the overall management and direction of sales, client relationship management and corporate access for Asian products with US clients.
He replaces Mark Cox, who is re-locating to Tokyo in early June to become global head of distribution for Japan cash equities. Prior to JPM, Steinberg was also most recently at Deutsche, where he headed up Japan sales distribution in New York before moving to Tokyo as global head of sales for Japan.
