JPMorgan Chase & Co has announced it has hired five research analysts for its industrial sector. The new hires join the American multinational investment bank to increase its coverage of Chinese listed companies.
The new hires join the bank from some of its rivals, including Morgan Stanley, Nomura, and UBS. The latest employees to join the bank are Billy Feng, Patrick Xu, Han Fu, Qian Yao, and Lei Mu.
The news comes from a report from Reuters, which is based on an internal memo which the company has seen. According to the report, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan in Hong Kong has confirmed the content of the memo.
Billy Feng joins JPMorgan from UBS as China technology analyst. Ex-Nomura employee, Patrick Xu has been appointed as China industrial analyst. Han Fu is an ex-employee of Morgan Stanley and will be the China basic material analyst.
Qian Yao also joins the Wall Street bank as China consumer analyst. Finally, Lei Mu is now the China energy analyst for JPMorgan, leaving Chinese refining giant Sinopec Corp.
Investment in China
Large banks have been investing more resources into their China Equities research coverage in recent months. This is because China-listed shares have been included in the U.S. index publisher MSCI’s emerging-markets benchmark
As a result, banks and brokerages have been realizing the importance of the country and have begun widening their product offering to give traders access to China-listed shares.
Certain investment banks have come into the spotlight for their hiring practices in China. Earlier this month, Finance Magnates reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that Credit Suisse Group AG would pay $77 million in fines.
This is because the Zurich-based bank was charged with obtaining business in the Asia-Pacific region by hiring people connected to influential Chinese officials.
However, Credit Suisse was not alone in its actions. The bank is the latest in a long line of Wall Street firms and US companies caught breaching the anti-bribery law in its Chinese hiring practices.
In 2016, JP Morgan Chase received a fine of $264 million from authorities. The fine came after regulators found the bank had a spreadsheet which linked particular hires to increased revenue.
