JP Morgan plans to up headcount

JP Morgan Chase Bank is boosting its Indian outfit by adding more employees across all segments "" research, sales and ECM (equity, capital markets).

During the last one month, JP Morgan's employee strength in India has gone up by 30 per cent.

Incidentally, between February and April this year, the financial services entity has lost 13 key people in its India operations, including U R Bhatt, who was among the most prominent faces in India in JP Morgan.

Srinivasan Varadarajan, managing director, head of market, at JP Morgan Chase Bank in India said, "India is a big focus for us and we are gearing ourselves up for the opportunities the economy is presenting."

Across all its divisions, JP Morgan has recruited around 30 people in the last three months in key positions.

This takes its total strength in India to 130. The company will continue recruitments.

The recent issue of Tata Consultancy Services with which JP Morgan was associated as one of the lead managers, has come as a shot in the arm for its investment banking activity.

"We got a lot of mileage out of it," said Srinivasan. However, he is quick to stress that in the investment banking space, the firm would be looking at mergers and acquisitions and good quality issues. "We are not looking at making it to the league tables," he said.

There is a perception in the market that JP Morgan has been losing market share in the brokerage business to other well-entrenched players such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.

Srinivasan said it was a sector-wide phenomenon and it was not restricted to their brokerage alone.

"The India story is not hot as it was before. Inflows into India this year are not driven by macroeconomic factors but by individual corporate performances," said Srinivasan.

The rest of Asia and even the other markets such as the US are sourcing talent from India. Rahul Dhruv, for instance, who is part of the research team, is responsible for covering all the US clients on India.

He will initially be working at the Mumbai office and at the end of the year will be moving to New York.

The specialist India sales team is located across Hong Kong, India, London and New York ensuring rapid and close communication with customers.