JPMorgan Is Revamping Its Bank for the Superrich to Cater to Global Clientele
David Frame named global head of the private bank, helping deep-pocketed clients invest more abroad
- JPMorgan Chase is reorganizing its private bank to better serve wealthy clients seeking to safeguard their wealth globally.
- Growing global conflicts and trade-war risks have made top earners wary of keeping their money in one country.
- David Frame will become global head of the private bank, a new role, as clients are treated as a group instead of by nation.
JPMorgan Chase JPM 0.55%increase; green up pointing triangle is reorganizing its private bank to better serve the world’s richest people, who want to safeguard their wealth by spreading it around the globe.
With a minimum required balance of $10 million, JPMorgan’s white-glove bank for the superrich is one of the preferred places for the world’s elite to store their wealth. These customers are demanding that JPMorgan invest more of their money abroad, not just in the country where they spend the bulk of their time.
Growing conflicts in the Middle East and the risk of a global trade war have made top clients more wary of keeping their money in one country or region of the world. Investors outside the U.S. also want to diversify their portfolios, attracted by the boom in private markets.
“Our clients have always been multi-jurisdictional but now their assets are too, and that’s becoming ever more so with how the world is changing,” said Mary Erdoes, head of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management unit, in an interview.
On Thursday, Erdoes announced internally that David Frame would become global head of the private bank, a new role inside the organization. Frame previously served as the U.S. head, as JPMorgan’s bank for the rich had been set up more to focus on clients in individual countries.
David Frame has been named global head of JPMorgan’s private bank. Photo: JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan executives say that is an increasingly outdated way of serving the world’s wealthiest.
“The wealthier you get, the more you feel you’re a citizen of the world,” Frame said in an interview. “If that doesn’t happen with the first generation of a family, it starts to happen with the second and the third.”
Erdoes said that JPMorgan’s private bank has already been busy helping its clients invest their money worldwide. When the German automaker Porsche started to work with JPMorgan’s investment bank for an initial public offering in 2022, it tapped the private bank to reach out to nearly 60 high-net-worth investors across the world to help build a book of orders for the stock.
Ultimately, 10 of the private bank’s high-net-worth clients participated in the deal, which was Europe’s largest IPO in over a decade. Each invested more than $100 million. Porsche shares are down nearly 50% since then.
Clients from around the world are also looking to invest in sports teams, which are commanding sky-high valuations as wealthy families pour billions into these franchises. When Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck started working with JPMorgan to find buyers for the franchise, the private bank contacted some 186 international clients to gauge their interest in the deal.
Frame said the deals show it makes more sense to treat these uber-rich clients as a group instead of siloing them by nationality.
“There are borders for sports teams, but it doesn’t feel that way when it comes to the wealthy who are investing in them,” Frame said.