J.P. Morgan builds multinational client coverage

J.P. Morgan has hired Christine Jang Tan as head of multinational subsidiary client coverage in Asia-Pacific for the global corporate bank. She joins the firm as a managing director and will be based in Singapore.

The global corporate bank manages the firm’s relationships with large corporations, financial institutions and public sector organisations worldwide to solve problems for clients and help them to grow.

Tan joins the firm from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where she was head of regional treasury sales for South Asia, with responsibility for developing and executing the sales strategy for pan-Asia subsidiaries of multinational clients and for large corporates in the region.

Before BoA Merrill, Tan spent 12 years at Citi in a number of roles throughout Asia, including head of the Hong Kong global subsidiaries group. In that role, she led the multinational client relationship team covering a variety of industries as well as managing a team of regional account managers providing coverage for global clients with headquarters in Hong Kong and China. Tan started her career at Citi in Thailand, managing a portfolio of clients in the retail, automotive, electronics and technology industries.

Tan’s hire completes J.P. Morgan’s team of regional multinational coverage heads — with Joe Abruzzo in the Americas and Cate Luzio in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea).

J.P. Morgan bankers say they see potential for growing their corporate banking business in Asia. Indeed, the global corporate bank division in Asia-Pacific is expected to deliver more than 20% year-on-year revenue growth during 2012. So far, the business is growing even faster, with revenues to May up by 27% year-on-year.

During the past five years, the firm’s wholesale businesses have grown at a compound rate of 15%, but growth has primarily been in the developed markets. Now the balance is shifting. From 2005 through 2010, Emea revenues grew at 12% a year, compared to 15% in Asia and 13% in Latin America. Bankers say they expect this trend to continue.

J.P. Morgan aims to increase the percentage of wholesale revenues from outside of the US from around 40% currently to more than 50% — and it is clear that it expects much of that growth to come from Asia.