U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan is a powerful player in Swiss banking. Now, the bank wants to expand its advisory business and is targeting the business with Swiss small and medium-sized companies.
U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan wants to advise smaller corporate clients in Switzerland, the so-called small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). This expansion is planned from Frankfurt, where J.P. Morgan has built up a team for German SME clients in recent years, as Bernhard Brinker, head of corporate client banking Germany, told the «Bloomberg». A search for a banker for Zurich is currently underway, he said.
Switzerland had a similar corporate structure to Germany, with many medium-sized companies, he added. Brinker sees potential among companies that are already active internationally or have foreign ambitions. The pandemic has created a new dynamic, he said.
Complementary to Regional Banks
Since mid-2020 and now also in the new year, J.P. Morgan has seen increased interest in M&A in the upper midmarket, the banker explained. Especially for companies that did relatively well during the crisis, attractive growth opportunities are now opening up, Brinker said according to the «Bloomberg» report.
Brinker does not believe that this puts the bank in direct competition with regional banks, which count many SMEs among their customers because many companies already are working with a group of banks, regional as well as international.
