JPM JP Morgan Chase and Co

By Ben Dummett

JPMorgan & Chase has hired a former adviser to the U.K. government and senior UBS Group AG banker as a vice chairman for investment banking across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, further bolstering its leading position in the region.

William Vereker, most recently business envoy for former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, is set to join the U.S. bank next week, reporting to Viswas Raghavan, chief executive of JP Morgan's EMEA operations, according to an internal memo. Before that Mr. Vereker was global co-head of investment banking at UBS.

He is based in London.

The appointment underscores the dominate position of the U.S. banks in EMEA over their European rivals, many of which are struggling under a lack of scale, bloated operations and an environment of slow growth and negative interest rates.

Last year, U.S. investment banks held the top five spots in EMEA measured by investment banking revenue. JPMorgan led the way with $1.52 billion followed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which posted revenue of $1.29 billion, according to Dealogic.

Mr. Vereker's hiring is meant to help JP Morgan build on that strength as a so-called "rainmaker" who can take advantage of his relationships with the largest companies in the U.K. and elsewhere in EMEA to help the bank win business advising on the biggest deals.

In an internal memo announcing the appointment, JPMorgan noted that his experience in particular complements the bank's strong position in the U.K., where it is a corporate broker to a third of the biggest publicly traded companies on the London Stock Exchange.

Corporate brokers are a breed of banker native to the U.K. and a few other countries--excluding the U.S.--whose function is to serve as a liaison between public companies and their institutional investors.

As the business envoy to the U.K. government between September 2018 and July 2019, Mr. Vereker's worked closely with British companies as a bridge with the government in managing expectations over the Britain's plans to separate from the European Union.

Write to Ben Dummett at ben.dummett@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 30, 2020 04:40 ET (09:40 GMT)

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