JPMorgan hiring in private-asset push targeting Canada's wealthy
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is building up its Canadian asset management team, with new hires planned for Toronto and Montreal, as it looks to tap into growing demand from the wealthy for private investments.
The bank is working on creating new alternative-investment products to offer to major wealth management firms in the country in the first half of this year. High-net worth individuals are the bank’s ultimate target, Travis Hughes, who heads JPMorgan Asset Management in Canada, said.
The bank’s Canadian asset management division is relatively small — it has about $36 billion under management and primarily serves institutional investors. But Hughes, who has been in the role for two years, said he’s trying to fill a need.
“If you look not only in the U.S. but in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia, there has been a concentrated push to bring these private alternatives to individual investors,” he said.
Private assets represent about one per cent to two per cent of Canadian retail investors’ portfolios, Hughes estimated, while that same figure is at least six per cent or seven per cent in the U.S. “We’re hoping to be in the early days of the growth of the asset class in Canada.”
JPMorgan hired Jay Rana, a former senior vice-president at Pacific Investment Management Co., to help run its Canadian adviser business and Hughes said other new additions will follow this year, mainly in the country’s two largest cities.
Canadian financial players are also angling to sell clients on private credit, private equity, real estate and other alternatives to stocks and bonds. Bank of Nova Scotia, for example, said in October it was partnering with Sun Life Financial Inc.’s asset management business to offer private alternatives. Last
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