Take a quick look at the latest numbers associated with transitions from one firm to another across the industry – it’s a bloodbath. J.P Morgan Private Bank and J.P.Morgan Securities are getting their collective teeth kicked in. The world’s most prominent bank is getting hammered week after week and month after month, with what looks like an accelerating pace at the moment.
Between UBS and Morgan Stanley, the predominant buyers of ‘banking’ teams in the wealth management space, JPM has lost more than $30B to UBS and another $5B to Morgan Stanley.
A couple of quotes were given to us by a current JPM private banker and a source at UBS that seems to sum up the current state of things at Jamie Dimon’s shop:
“It is chaos over here right now,” said our source at JPM, “they are trying to patch up gaping holes with the type of rhetoric usually reserved for therapy, and making monetary promises about end-of-year bonuses that aren’t attached to any guarantees or paperwork.”
“JPM management feels a lot like the end of the movie ‘Miracle’ right now”, said a source at UBS. “The US team coaches, as time wound down, couldn’t understand why the Russians weren’t pulling the goalie in the last minutes while trailing. Ultimately they realized that the Russian coaches and team were so shocked to be in a losing position that they didn’t know how to respond. That’s JPM Private Bank and their management right now, they have no idea what to do.”UBS in particular has found a silver bullet for landing private banking teams and the ‘asset transfer’ ledger is proof. They are leading all the recruiting ranking this year by a figure of nearly 4x the firm in the second position (Rockefeller).
So far JPM’s response financial response has been tepid at best. Rumor has it that senior bankers are getting promises of $100k increases in year-end bonuses and larger percentage-based salary bumps. That ain’t gonna get it, dude. The exodus will continue.
