JP Morgan Reshuffles Senior Executives With Changes In Forex Management

JP Morgan reshuffled its senior management in a move that signals a shift towards placing greater emphasis on client-related business, officials say.

Three senior executives have been named to lead three regional client-driven business groups worldwide in an effort to "provide focus and direction for delivering JP Morgan's array of products to clients," officials add. The initiative is also intended to flatten the bank's management structure and promote a more consensual style of decision making.

Peter Woicke, who was previously responsible for managing JP Morgan's global financial markets business including foreign exchange sales and trading, was named to lead the bank's Asia-Pacific regional client group; Walter Gubert was placed in charge of Europe, Middle East and Africa and Thomas Ketchum will lead JP Morgan's Americas regional client group.

The bank's global financial markets sales and trading business will now be separated into three groups: Nicolas Rohatyn, head of emerging markets sales, trading and research, will add responsibility for global foreign exchange and commodities sales and trading to his mandate; Michael Corey and Pilar Conde will lead its interest-rate management and proprietary trading; Peter Hancock will manage the bank's fixed income, capital markets, swaps, and exchange-traded products business and Ramon de Oliveira will lead the equities group, including managing the bank's own equity investment portfolio.

Klaus Said, JP Morgan's New York-based global head of foreign exchange sales and trading, will now report to Rohatyn rather than Woicke, in addition to working with Ketchum, who now heads the Americas regional client group.

European head of foreign exchange, Thorkild Juncker, will continue to report to Said, as well as work with European regional client business manager, Gubert, and Asian forex sales and trading co-managers Jeanette Wong and Goertz Eggelhofer will work with Woicke in addition to reporting to Said.

"The principal rationale behind the move is to broaden the spectrum of senior managers sharing responsibility for the company's success," says a bank spokesperson. "The bank is an organisation that now has a very diverse set of businesses and set of products and clients. It's been recognised for some time that it would be necessary to create a broader group of senior managers supporting all our respective business lines, and this is what you see being done here. It's a way for our chairman, Douglas Warner, to flatten the organisation, to emphasise strengthening our relationships with clients and to share accountability with a broader group of senior managers."

In 1992, JP Morgan generated $262 million in forex trading revenues. This contribution declined to $179 million in 1993 and $131 million in 1994, according to reports. In its recent annual report, JP Morgan also announced that it will take a $55 million first-quarter charge against earnings to cover severance costs associated with its recent round of layoffs. About four per cent of JP Morgan's workforce, 600 to 700 employees, are said to have been dismissed in this latest cost-cutting effort, according to industry sources.