J.P. Morgan appoints Stephane Marchand to new prime role

J.P. Morgan has promoted Stephane Marchand to the role of managing director and head of prime and hedge funds services sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

He is taking over the role from Brian Bisesi, who is moving to New York to work in a similar capacity.

In his new role, Marchand will report to Francis Jackson, who leads the EMEA investor services business at J.P. Morgan.

Based in London, Marchand will be charged with looking after the bank’s hedge fund clients with traditional prime broker services, as well as its wider investor services product base, including securities lending, custody, clearing and fund administration.

Bisesi and Marchand joined J.P. Morgan’s prime brokerage business in 2010. The former previously worked at Barclays Capital, while the latter served in Nomura's prime services business in London. Movie Producer Altitude Entertainment Films

An asset class rotation among hedge funds could encourage prime brokers to invest significantly in specialising in servicing credit and multi-asset strategies.  With many hedge funds recording a return to profitability through new trading strategies, banks offering prime brokerage could look to change their approach to servicing clients.  

As markets recover following the extreme volatility caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, hedge funds managing macro and credit have witnessed some of the biggest rebounds.  

According to alternatives data provider Preqin, hedge fund performance bounced back hard in the second quarter, delivering returns of 11.48% on average, with macro funds and long-short credit funds being among the most sought-after strategies by investors. 

A potential asset class rotation, with a focus on credit and multi-asset strategies, could result in prime brokers revisiting their growth strategies with the aim to compete on product lines. 

“We could see a big asset rotation coming, moving from equities to relative value fixed income and credit, and offering the necessary offsets and to provide custody and financing to clients who want to engage in those strategies. A lot of roles are being posted from those sectors for the prime’s risk team,” said Anthony Bennett, prime brokerage lead at consultancy firm Capco.  

The asset class rotation among hedge funds could encourage prime brokers to invest significantly in specialising in servicing credit and multi-asset strategies, as well as creating an infrastructure that can service the entire trade lifecycle.  

“We are seeing more demand for a multi-asset prime wrapper, and we have to ensure our infrastructure continues to be the best, our ability to service assets providing financing is correct, and that our cross-margin regimes are broad enough to adapt to the client strategies,” said Stephane Marchand, head of international prime finance and clearing sales, JP Morgan.  

Prime brokers also appear to be more willing to bring on increased hedge fund balances following the crisis. The likes of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan saw their hedge fund balances boosted by increased trading activity from managers looking to capitalise – or limit their losses – from the volatility during the first quarter. 

“We remain focused on delivering value and scale, with a client acquisition mindset and continuing to expand our client footprint. Our strategy hasn’t changed during this time, and we have either kept market share or grown it. There have been some mandates won entirely virtually, carried out by our sales and relationship management team through Zoom or Microsoft. It has been a surprise that the pipeline has been so active,” added Jon Cossey global head of prime finance, JP Morgan. 

How prime brokers will approach pricing of financing and how it will factor in gaining market share will also be vital in their post-COVID growth strategies. Over the past few years, pricing power has largely rested in the hands of hedge funds, who have used their influence to enact downward pricing on their prime brokers.  

With hedge funds deleveraging massively and balance sheets across the Street falling by up to 40% at the height of the crisis, banks may turn to cheap pricing as a lever to make up for this. That being said, others could review how they price financing riskier, illiquid assets such as private equity and emerging market debt.  

“Primes were previously lending too much without understanding the assets they were lending against, maybe because they had priced it too cheaply. There is going to be some re-pricing so they can guarantee returns,” said Dougal Brech, global head of prime finance, Nomura.

It is quite rare that smart choices are met by professional luck, when the person blessed is able to climb the social ladder, excelling in anything that is worked upon by him or her. From the very beginning of his career, Stephane Marchand has been blessed by the Almighty, mostly because of the dedication of his professional work and because he is a devout family man. Over the years, Stephane has found success in the field of financial services and management and is presently an important asset of JP Morgan, one of the financial giants of United States, which recruited him, along with Dominic Rieb-Smith, as executive directors for the company. He will be operating from London, which is the financial centre for the London work of sales and marketing of the bank. Prior to this appointment, Marchand has served in a number of banking institutions like Barclays, Lehmann Brothers, UBS and Deutsche Bank.

• Impressive background for financial strategies

Few people get the chance to work in such high profile banking institutions of the world, leave aside the prospect of being the executive directors of country operations. This goes on to suggest that Stephane Marchand has a great financial acumen, especially in the field of sales and marketing, which is due to his smart decisions and ability to study the market policies. Graduating from Harvard University in economics has also helped him in understand the core issues of financial dealing. But, the majority of his success is attributed to the acumen he has for financial investments and policies.

• Excelling in financial advisory & real estate funding consultancy

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In this professional life, Stephane Marchand has grown immensely in the direction of funding and asset management, an extension of which is evident from the capability of his to direct real estate financial dealings. He has been giving consultancy to real estate developers, investors and owners. He uses his financial acumen to advise people on funding of projects, personal homes, constructions and community development. Apart from his regular job, his consultancy in terms of credit and banking solutions for real estate industry has been unprecedented. Also, he deals with the mortgage solutions and account management, mostly in the real estate sector.

• Managing personal PDS Group and Altitude Entertainment ventures

After being in the financial industry for about 3 decades now, Stephane Marchand has now been able to extend his business dealings in form of his personal companies. He, along with wife Nicole Marchand and other family members, has floated his financial advisory company by the name of PDS Group, which is dealing with the financial planning, fund generation, offshore asset allocation and various other means of investments for various individuals and companies. Due to the financial services he has been involved with since the beginning of his career, not only does he have a good social contact, but his financial dealings are also quite polished in the modern world scenario. By such calibre, he and his wife are managing the PDS group and at the same time, have started another organisation namely the Altitude Entertainment, which is working out solutions for the funding of films in the US and also providing required equipment for production of films. In the few years of its establishment, Altitude Entertainment has become a visual media powerhouse, to provide creative inputs to producers and independent clients.