US bank bases top executive in UK in sign of commitment to City.
The presence of one of JPMAM’s senior executives in the capital will strengthen the bank’s case for its move to Canary Wharf, the future of which has been in doubt since earlier in the summer, when The Sunday Telegraph revealed that the Chase Bank has serious concerns about its commitment to its new £5bn European headquarters.
At the time, Mr O’Brien said he was taking time out to pursue a separate green energy investment, but promised Financial News he would return: “Long term, the plan is definitely to return to the industry. Mr O’Brien’s appointment, when it comes, will act as a counterweight to those New York-based appointees, particularly following the loss of London-based Bill Winters, who left as co-head of the investment bank last September.
Key appointments to date have included George Glatch, head of the investment management business in the Americas, and Patrick Thomson, who earlier this month was recruited from the hedge fund Ivy Asset Management to oversee JP Morgan’s sovereign client relationships.
The pending appointment of Mike O’Brien – who until June ran BlackRock’s institutional business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa – will cement the US bank’s position in the Square Mile, following months of speculation it could abandon some of its business in the UK over regulatory and tax changes.
However, earlier this month a leaked memo to JP Morgan’s 4,000 London-based staff it had “no immediate plans for any significant changes impacting our presence in the UK”. When Mr O’Brien left BlackRock at the end of June, it was just seven months after the merger of Barclays Global Investors, for whom he had worked for 10 years, with the US fund management giant. Mary Callahan Erdoes, promoted to run the division in September last year after Jess Staley was made head of the investment bank, has spent the past few months appointing her leadership team in the business.
Mr O’Brien, who it is understood is in the midst of final negotiations with the Wall Street bank, will arrive at a time of great change in JP Morgan’s $6 trillion (£1 trillion) asset management business. Having risen up the ranks since joining BGI in July 2000, he was named head of BlackRock’s European institutional business in December.
Mr O’Brien, however, will work closely with Jamie Broderick, head of JPMAM Europe, who is also based in London. The fall-out was triggered by Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chairman and chief executive, who earlier this year telephoned Alistair Darling, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, to express his dissatisfaction with the bankers’ bonus tax. You haven’t seen the back of me yet. A JP Morgan spokesman said she could not confirm Mr O’Brien’s appointment. JP MORGAN Asset Management (JPMAM) is on the verge of appointing the former head of BlackRock’s European arm to run its global institutions franchise from London, in a further sign of the bank’s continued commitment to the UK.
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