JP Morgan To Double Investments In India; Ramp Up I-Banking
The Economic Times has some details about US investment bank JP Morgan’s plans in India. It intends to double its proprietary investments in the next one year. It has so far made an investment of about $500-750 million in a variety of sectors like cement, infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare and BPO. Some of its investee companies include Binani Cement, L&T-IDPL and Apollo Hospitals. JP Morgan’s MD and head of investment banking, Vedika Bhandarkar, tells the paper that the firm is looking at doubling proprietary investments into such companies.
The firm has also been ramping up its investment banking division, a development which gathered momentum after its talks to acquire Enam Financial failed a few months back. JP Morgan recently hired Ranjit Lakhanpal of Credit Suisse, as managing director of corporate finance, and Mehul Savla of ICICI Securities as an executive director in the equity capital markets division.
It has also shifted the firm’s London-based executive Cyrus Mehta to Mumbai as executive director of leveraged finance business. The firm has also hired more than10 analysts in the last couple of months. Currently, JP Morgan has a small team of 25 people in the i-banking division, which will be ramped up to 30-35 by the end of the year.
