People arrive to the JPMorgan Chase's New York headquarters in April. The U.S. bank has increased its Canadian director headcount by 20 per cent in the last year.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
JPMorgan Chase JPM-N has hired Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s head of equities trading Chris Finora to lead its Canadian Cash Equities Trading franchise, the bank told Reuters, as it expands its equities platform to capture growing investment opportunities in Canada.
Mr. Finora joins JPMorgan in Toronto this month after about two years at CPPIB and 27 years at TD Securities. JPMorgan, the largest U.S. lender, has hired 18 executives and managing directors in Canada in the past year, increasing its director headcount in the country by 20 per cent, it said.
JPMorgan’s expansion in Canada is a statement of confidence in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government, which aims to attract $1-trillion in investment in the next five years, and is an example of U.S. business interest in the country despite fraying political ties with the United States.
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“We believe that inbound Canadian investment will accelerate over the next decade and we want to be better positioned to capture these flows in both private and public markets,” Canada CEO David Rawlings said in an interview.
“We continue to be active on outbound activity but plan to spend more time with global pools of capital focused on the inbound activity,” he said.
Mr. Rawlings said JPMorgan, which established a Canadian equities team about eight years ago after regulatory changes, is now investing further in the business through senior hires, additional capital and likely expansion of its research team over time.
In Canada, JPMorgan has worked on major deals recently, including Rockpoint Gas Storage’s TSX IPO and Alimentation Couche-Tard’s deal to buy Poland’s Zabka.
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JPMorgan Canada has grown its local headcount by about 50 per cent in the past five years, and revenue in the country has nearly doubled through market share gains and client growth, the bank said.
Mr. Carney is next week hosting a first-of-its-kind investment summit in Toronto, which is expected to gather global investors and companies that collectively oversee more than $100-trillion in assets.
The summit could unlock new investments flowing into Canada as the federal government is expected to present the country’s untapped potential in defence, energy, critical minerals and other sectors. The Toronto Stock Exchange has outperformed the S&P 500 recently.