JPMorgan to expand Private-Banking
Team in Latin America by 25%
The additions would add roughly 100
people to the US firm’s private-banking ranks serving the region from foreign
offices in Miami, New York, Houston and Geneva, outposts where it has about 430
employees dedicated to the business.
Source: American Banker
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is planning
to increase headcount in its Latin American private-banking unit by about 25%
next year as the firm looks to attract more clients with $5 million to $25
million to invest at the bank.
“We have been hiring very
aggressively in this segment and will keep doing so,” Edinardo Figueiredo,
chief executive officer for JPMorgan’s private-banking business in Latin
America, said in an interview. “There’s still a lot to gain.”
JPMorgan, already the biggest
private bank serving Latin American clients, is gaining market share as
political uncertainty persuades many clients to diversify abroad, according to
Figueiredo.
JPMorgan manages about $180 billion
in wealth from Latin American clients, and about 10% of those assets are booked
in Geneva.
Banks around the world have been
competing for wealthy individuals, bolstering their advisory and lending
practices to capture more assets. Citigroup Inc. combined its consumer
wealth-management and private-banking units under a single executive early last
year, and Bank of America Corp. said in September it formed a new group to
expand its offerings to rich clients.
In 2020, JPMorgan started closing
its onshore private-banking businesses in Latin American nations such as Brazil
and Mexico, ending a decades-long effort to compete locally after deciding it
lacked the scale to be profitable. Now, it has only an offshore business
serving Latin America clients.
Most of the assets, about $65
billion, are from Mexican clients. Wealthy Brazilians, most of whom invest
their money onshore, have $31 billion offshore at JPMorgan, Figueiredo said.
The bank hired 50 people last year,
and this year increased the Latin American private-banking team with an
additional 20 bankers based in Miami, Figueiredo said.
“Now I have 70 people serving
clients with $5 million to $25 million invested with us, and we may get to 100
fast in the next two years,” he said, adding that those clients can access
JPMorgan’s entire platform of products, including mortgages.
The bank is also benefiting from a trend among wealthy Latin Americans to get “super global,” he said, citing one Latin American family with apartments in Italy, Paris and the UK. While Brazilians usually buy real estate in Miami, New York or Portugal, customers from Spanish-speaking countries are buying real estate in Madrid, he said, adding that the bank hosted an event there with more than 120 participants.
JPMorgan will post a 20% revenue
increase for the private-banking business this year in Latin America, after
raising about $13 billion in net new money. That’s on top of $23 billion
last year, he said.
“Considering our net new money
increase and gains with rising interest rates and strong brokerage activity, we
are having the best year since 2010,” Figueiredo said.