[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

JPMorgan Chase, amid contention of whether to split the roles of chairman and CEO held by Jamie Dimon, has appointed 2 people to jointly lead the firm's mergers and acquisitions unit.  For Dealbook's full story, continue reading or click the link below.

May 16, 2013, 12:14 pm
JPMorgan Appoints Co-Heads of Global M.&A.

JPMorgan Chase, a bank that has worked on some of the year’s biggest mergers and acquisitions, has named two new people to jointly lead that business.

Hernan Cristerna and Chris Ventresca were named co-heads of the global mergers and acquisitions practice, in newly created roles, according to an internal memorandum reviewed by DealBook. They will report to Jeff Urwin, the global head of investment banking.

“Our refined M.&A. structure marks an important milestone for our global advisory business, and allows us to align and fully leverage the talent and experience of our M.&A. bankers,” Mr. Urwin said in the memorandum, the contents of which were confirmed by a JPMorgan spokeswoman.

Mr. Ventresca, a 25-year veteran of JPMorgan, was most recently head of mergers and acquisitions in North America. He led transactions including the Virgin Media sale to Liberty Global in February and Dollar Thrifty’s sale to Hertz last year, according to the memo.

Mr. Cristerna, as head of mergers and acquisitions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, led some prominent cross-border deals, including the blockbuster acquisition by the Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev of Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser. He has been with the bank for 20 years.

Mr. Ventresca said in an interview that the promotion was aimed at helping JPMorgan consider deal-making worldwide, instead of on a region-by-region basis. With more mergers spanning multiple country borders, the new structure made sense.

“It’s a nice evolution of what we’ve been doing with our M.&A. practice,” he said. “It lets us be more nimble.”

JPMorgan has flexed its deal-making muscle over the last few months. It advised Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital on their $23 billion deal for H.J. Heinz, for example. This year, the bank is No. 2 among merger advisers worldwide, working on nearly $162 billion worth of announced deals, according to Thomson Reuters data. (Bank of America Merrill Lynch is currently in the top spot.)

Though a number of big deals were announced early this year, including the Heinz takeover and the proposed management buyout of Dell Inc., many practitioners have been disappointed by the relatively slow pace of mergers. But Mr. Ventresca said that the firm is confident the practice will get busier, with his team filling its pipeline with more assignments to sell ever-bigger companies and private equity firms eager to strike deals.

“I feel the back half of the year feels better than the front half,” he said. “I’m hoping we have many more elephants.”

The appointments come after a period of changes in JPMorgan’s top ranks. In January, James E. Staley, former head of the investment bank, left to join a hedge fund.

Last year, Mr. Urwin, the investment banking head, moved to Hong Kong and gained additional duties as chief executive of Asia-Pacific operations. He has since returned to New York.
 

[Dealbook, 5/16/13]