What is your role?
My overall remit is head of the UK funds business, of which the lion’s share is UK intermediaries, and the products I’m responsible for are Oeic funds, investment trusts and Sicavs, which are sold back into the UK.
There are some very large and important insurance companies within the UK arena, several of which have significant global capabilities. It makes sense for us to coordinate with the distribution of those insurance companies when they are taking a product they have linked to JP Morgan Asset Management funds out around the world.
And because I sit on JP Morgan’s Global Funds Management Operating Committee, I work very closely with my colleague Jed Laskowitz, who is responsible for our Asia business, and Massimo Greco, responsible for our Continental European business.
I am also responsible from a funds perspective for areas where there is a historical or crown link: Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man and Gibraltar. The Middle East also falls within my remit because of the close link between the Middle East and London around UK expat clients, the life insurance companies, the big international banks and the private banks that have headquarters in London.
The remit does not go so far as Latin America and Asia, but the link in the chain with all of those markets is the international life companies that distribute globally.
“I feel we can serve clients well from here in London. The team can look holistically at Dubai, other parts of the Middle East, South Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, where we have existing clients.”
How does your product range reflect the different requirements throughout the world?
We have long-standing relationships with many life companies and some key intermediaries around the world. Some of these relationships exceed my 16 years with the company.
Investment trends and client preferences vary greatly across the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America. For example, as rising tolerance for investment risk across Asia has driven greater market participation, our partnership with the international life companies who are evolving to meet shifting investor needs has helped us build significant assets.
We continue to see appetite for our market-leading single-country funds from the major regions our life company partners support, including our India, China and Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) funds.
Our Asean funds, for example, meet the higher risk appetite of our partners in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. However, it is also fair to say there is a growing global demand for new and varied sources of income, such as our Global Income fund.
The developed market phenomenon of low interest rates has benefited our life company partners who have seen their clients moving their assets out of cash and into the markets. Our ability to provide innovative income solutions has resulted in momentum not just in Europe but across Asia.
What we are starting to see now is more and more advisers internationally looking at our solution-based products, whether these are managed, cautious, multi-asset income or multi-asset growth and multi-manager funds.
Several months ago, we launched a new suite of multi-manager funds in our Oeic range, and we’ve seen real interest from European, Middle East and South African advisers through the life companies.
The onset of outsourcing investment solutions that has taken place over the past few years in the UK has shown that advisers are becoming more comfortable with holistic investment solutions.
Given the volatility in the markets over the past 10 years and the difficulty of knowing which asset classes will provide reliable returns for each type of client, as well as the increasing regulatory burden on advisers to review and select the best products, multi-strategy investment solutions will become more and more popular, in our view.
Finally, life company partners continue to appreciate JP Morgan’s global strength of brand when considering who they want as a partner for their assets.
How do you organise the team to look after the global markets?
We have reduced our footprint in Dubai and refocused on serving the business from London. We are reviewing the best way to optimise our opportunities in these arenas in terms of client servicing and selling.
Presence on the ground is not necessarily the best means to service clients if we can effectively coordinate a global team from London that looks holistically at Dubai as well as other parts of the Middle East, South Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
Regulation is a pretty mixed picture internationally, isn’t it?
That is part of the issue. I would not say there is global regulation because that does not exist, but regulation is becoming more progressive around the world.
It makes sense for us to understand how regulation is developing globally and its impact on international markets. We need to make sure everything we do is extremely regulatory cognisant. We want to do absolutely the right thing for our clients, and we always have done.
As we go through regulatory change post-crisis there is going to increased regulatory scrutiny in each of these markets about international and cross-border work.
In terms of volume of business, is there going to be a short-term hiatus as you bed down the new strategy?
It depends on how much activity we can do from London. For example, it makes sense for global strategists or fund managers to reach these audiences with timely insights through teleconference calls.
I’m thinking about what is the best way to operate in these countries in terms of the ‘fly in’ model, which a number of our competitors have undertaken for some time.
Name a key marketing initiative aimed at advisers in the international markets?
We are constantly looking to support advisers and add value to the sales process, not just for the life companies we work with but for the individual advisers.
Part of that is bringing our Market Insights programme to the international market. For example, Guide to the Markets, part of the Market Insights programme, is a collection of timely economic statistics illustrated in concise charts advisers can use to help explain the markets to clients.
Life company partners are increasingly interested in training their advisers to add a capital markets dimension to client conversations and the guide can be incorporated as a tool.
There’s no product or fund promotion included in the guide, it’s purely informational. It’s built to provide a narrative for helping clients to understand the markets and make better investment decisions.
An adviser has the freedom and ability to incorporate his or her own investment story with the framework of the charts, so it can support a wide range of investment recommendations by providing greater context on the macro environment.
Which markets are you most excited about on a three-year view?
If we are talking about the expat market, then all of them – whether it’s Europe, the Middle East, Asia or Latin America – offer opportunities.
That’s more a function of the fact we are seeing growth happen globally and the need for advice rising in emerging markets, where wealth has been created from a different demographic trend to that of the ageing populations of Western markets.
Asia is the one market that will most obviously grow and develop, not only to do with its demographics but also as more countries in Asia start to develop their financial services capabilities.
It’s no surprise that the international life companies we work with have been developing their Asia distribution over the past decade. And our products and our relationship with those international sales forces and advisers is a very strong one.
It is important we’re able to provide support to our life company partners, who are not only focusing on the traditional expat market but are increasingly expanding their local businesses in Asia.
There is a growing emphasis from the international life companies on building a local presence and local language advisers, and we have the capabilities to help that continued growth across Asia through support of our regional sales offices.
