JPMorgan confirms high-level team in Australia

Five months after Trevor Loewensohn deserted to UBS, JPMorgan has named its high-level management team for Australia - the firm's biggest market in Asia Pacific ex-Japan. Tim Fletcher and Shaun Treacy have both been promoted within the bank to become co-heads of investment banking. Fletcher will be based in Sydney, while Treacy will run the Melbourne operation.

The two will report to Rob Priestley, senior country officer for Australia and New Zealand, and to Sean Wallace and Bong Consing, who co-head the bank's Asia-Pacific ex-Japan investment banking business. Wallace who spent considerable time in Australia during the restructuring process has now returned permanently to Hong Kong.

The other appointment announced this week is the hiring of Mike Tilley, formerly of Merrill Lynch, to become vice chairman of investment banking at JPMorgan.

Fletcher, who was most recently based in Hong Kong, returned to Australia soon after Loewensohn's departure to run the consumer and industrials division, a job left vacant by Kevin Jacobson who resigned at the same time as Loewensohn in August last year. He will continue to manage this portfolio. Fletcher has been with JPMorgan for the past 11 years working on equity and debt financings in New York, Sydney, San Francisco and Hong Kong.

Treacy is also being recalled from an overseas posting in London where he was working in the metals and mining advisory group. He returns to Australia after 12 years in Dallas New York and London.

Commenting on the appointments, Priestley says an important element of the firm's strategy is to repatriate Australians who have worked in overseas offices. "They bring a global perspective with local executions skills that allow them to deliver the firm's global product and services to Australian clients," he says. JPMorgan has relocated more than 10 investment bankers back to home territory in recent times.

The hiring of Mike Tilley at the level of vice chairman is a coup. Tilley retired as chairman of Merrill Lynch Australia two years ago but has come back from retirement to join JPMorgan. With a 25-year investment banking career under his belt, he will work with Peter Mason, the chairman of JPMorgan Australia, to increase senior attention and commitment to top Australian corporates and financial institutions.

JPMorgan's 2004 pipeline includes two large asset sales in the electricity sector, one for Loy Yang A and the other for Duke Energy International.