JP Morgan in onshore push

JP Morgan, whose institutional broking business in India is coming from its offshore clients, is looking to expand its market share by adding more and more onshore institutional clients in coming months.

"The move reflects the firm's confidence in the India growth story and its confidence in the long-term growth of domestic equity markets," said Nick Andrews, head of Asia Pacific and emerging market equities at JP Morgan.

As part of the strategy, the company, which recently hired six new members to its equity sales and sales trading team in India, is beefing up its institutional broking segment by hiring another seven people in the trading desk and six people in its research segment.

The firm has a nine-member equity trading desk and 16-memeber research division. This will be increased to 16 and 22 respectively very soon, he said in an telephonic interview.

"We have a market share (in institutional broking) in high single digit percentage. We hope to take this to a double digit percentage in two years," Andrews said, adding that its clients will have a range of products to choose from both in equities and derivatives.

"Derivative products are a key part of the Indian franchise," he said.

JP Morgan's plans coincides with similar strategies of other global banks such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers, Macquarie among others. All the firms are on a hiring spree.

"Definitely, it is not easy to find experienced talent. It has been tough (to get people) in the last couple of years."

In addition to global investment banks, there has also been fast expansion in India by hedge funds and private equity funds. "All these firms are hiring from the same talent pool."

Recent hiring by JP Morgan saw the firm attracting talent from rivals Lehman Brothers, Enam and Merrill Lynch.

He said the India was among its top priority growth focus now in emerging markets. The other emerging market where JP Morgan is bullish are Russia, Brazil and China. "We are here for the long term," Andrews said.