JPMorgan Expands Global Commodities Business

JPMorgan announced today that it has hired 50 people for its global Commodities business this year, further expanding the investment bank’s capabilities. Blythe Masters, global head of Commodities at JPMorgan said: "We have an extremely talented, well-established team with aggressive, but attainable, long-term growth plans. Our ability to advise, structure and execute for clients across the globe is second to none and it’s why we are attracting some of the best people in the industry.” JPMorgan’s Commodities business is focusing specifically on the build-out of five major businesses: power and gas trading; oil and distillates trading; carbon and environmental products; energy sales and marketing; and commodity-linked structured products. The following hires have been announced in JPMorgan’s U.S. Power and Gas Trading business: Foster Smith joined as a managing director and head of U.S. Power and Gas Trading from Deutsche Bank. Matt Motley will join as a managing director and head of Power Trading from Sempra Energy. Jeffrey Stone and Win Russell joined as executive directors in U.S. Natural Gas Options Trading and West Power Trading, respectively. Both joined from Deutsche Bank. Robert Benson and Frank Ermis will join as executive directors specializing in east power trading and western natural gas trading, respectively. Both will join from UBS. Peter Miller joined as a vice president in West Physical Power Trading from Goldman Sachs. The following hires have been announced in JPMorgan’s Global Oil Trading group: Kiru Rajasingam joined as a managing director and head of Global Distillates Trading from Goldman Sachs, based in London. Simon Towns joined as an executive director in Gasoline Trading from Goldman Sachs. Andrew Harrison will join as an executive director in Distillates Trading from Goldman Sachs. Michael Cundey joined as a vice president in Fuel Oil Trading from Barclays Capital. The following hires have been recently announced for JPMorgan’s global expansion into the carbon and environmental markets: Dr. Odin Knudsen joined as managing director of Carbon Strategy and Business Development, based in Washington D.C. He has more than 30 years of experience in sustainable development and international finance. He was a senior advisor to the World Bank and has also advised leading power utilities and banks in meeting the challenges of the carbon market. Kedin Kilgore joined as executive director and head of Environmental Products for the Americas from RNK Capital LLC. Bhavna Prasad and Tina Reine joined JPMorgan’s Environmental Products Marketing team as vice presidents. Prasad was previously in JPMorgan Chase’s Environmental Affairs office, while Reine worked at CantorCO2e/Climatewarehouse, a U.K.-based company that delivers and retires offsets in the voluntary market. The following hires have been announced in JPMorgan’s global marketing and origination groups: Chris Calger joined as managing director and head of U.S. Structured Energy Origination from Westport Energy LLC. Alexandra Merz will join as managing director and co-head of Energy Marketing in Europe from Deutsche Bank. Dominic Harris joined as executive director in structuring and marketing on the European Energy Marketing team from UBS. Michael Bressler joined as executive director and head of Global Energy Hedge Fund Sales from Goldman Sachs. JPMorgan is strengthening its commodity-linked product efforts. Mike Camacho, previously head of JPMorgan’s Americas Structured Investment group, recently took on a new role as head of Global Structured Commodities. In this position, Camacho is responsible for commodity investor sales and structuring. JPMorgan was named Interest Rate and Commodities Derivatives House of the Year by International Financing Review (IFR) magazine in 2006 and Energy Derivatives House of the Year in 2007 by Risk magazine. About JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan is the investment banking division of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM). JPMorgan Chase has assets of $1.5 trillion and operations in more than 50 countries. The firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers, small business and commercial banking, financial transaction processing, asset and wealth management, and private equity. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, JPMorgan Chase serves millions of consumers in the United States and many of the world’s most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients under its JPMorgan and Chase brands. Information about the firm is available at www.jpmorganchase.com.