JPMorgan is growing a super-prestigious business in Hong Kong

JPMorgan is establishing 23 Wall in Hong Kong as Asian family offices come of age.

23 Wall – named after the bank’s iconic former headquarters in Manhattan – is a joint venture between JPMorgan’s investment banking and private banking divisions that sits within its institutional wealth management arm. 

Staffed by a select group of investment bankers and private equity specialists, 23 Wall is responsible for the origination and execution of capital markets and mergers and acquisitions for family offices which are clients or prospects of the private bank. JPMorgan also has 23 Wall Private investments, which invests clients’ money institutionally across capital markets, both debt and equity. 

The U.S. bank is looking to recruit a managing director and an executive director in Hong Kong for 23 Wall as it builds the team in Asia.

The initiative was launched globally 2020, and is now being rolled out in Hong Kong at a time when Asia Family Offices are becoming more sophisticated in their needs and when private capital is set to hit $5 trillion in the next five years.

“In the last three or four years, family offices in Asia have moved from being run by accountants who put money where they are told to behaving a lot more like institutions, and banks have set up dedicated teams to cover them both from an investment banking perspective and to manage their assets,” said one head of financial sponsors in Hong Kong.

Banks are vying for talent both in asset gathering and also in covering family offices as clients of their investment banking arms as they start to behave like traditional private equity companies. This month, JPMorgan hired Tim Chow from Bank of America as head of financial sponsors and family offices coverage. 

The race to manage the assets of China’s burgeoning ultra-high net worth individuals is driving the expansion of banks’ wealth management and private banking operations across Asia – and demand for deal-makers to work in this area continues to soar.

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