JP Morgan AM hires Asian credit head in build-out

May 22, 2011

Shaw-yann Ho joins from ING Investment Management to run JP Morgan AM's portfolio of Asian corporate bonds and to recruit credit specialists, as the firm aims to bolster its emerging markets credit team.

JP Morgan Asset Management has hired Shaw-yann Ho from ING Investment Management as its head of Asian credit in a newly created position within its regional fixed income team.

Based in Hong Kong since the start of May, Ho is responsible for managing the firm’s local corporate bond portfolio and running a team of credit analysts around the region.

She will also need to coordinate with JP Morgan AM’s other regional heads of credit in London and New York, to contribute ideas and to help run some of the firm’s global credit products.

JP Morgan AM has been building its corporate credit team within emerging markets and recently appointed Scott McKee from hedge fund Volterra as its head of Latin American credit based in New York.

Ho is effectively now deputy to Stephen Chang, the firm’s head of Asian fixed income, who tells AsianInvestor he is seeking to add further to the team in a region where he anticipates strong growth both in investment opportunities and client demand.

Currently JP Morgan AM has one credit analyst based in Hong Kong, India and its Shanghai-based joint-venture China International Fund Management, to add to its team of fixed income fund managers around the region, including Taiwan.

“We are looking to expand Hong Kong as our regional headquarters to increase our Asia coverage,” says Chang. “We want to coordinate our regional investment efforts from here. I want a team to run the Asian credit process.”

He notes rampant recent bond issuance from fast-growing companies across Asia and the broader emerging markets universe over the past few years, especially in the high-yield arena, and he expects this trend to continue.

“As part of a global rebalancing, people are realising they are underweight in emerging market products, and the credit market is an area getting a lot of interest. You should see good growth across Asia, with interesting issuers coming from all sorts of places.”

Ho previously worked at ING Investment Management as a senior credit analyst. Prior to that she worked at Mirae Asset Management as a fixed income credit analyst.

JP Morgan Asset Management’s Asian fixed income team had about $9.3 billion in assets under management as at April 30 this year.