JP Morgan AM Bolsters UK Sales Team

Tom Burroughes

23 December 2013

JP Morgan Asset Management has announced the appointment of Andrew Larkin as head of the newly formed global strategic relationships management team in UK Funds Sales, reporting to Jasper Berens, who is head of UK Funds.

This new role is part of JP Morgan Asset Management's strategy realign its sales team structure to better focus on its key clients, the firm said in a statement last week.

"In order to continue to build the record momentum of our business, we need to be certain our resources are optimally aligned to our greatest opportunities and our most important strategic clients. This restructuring of our sales teams around clearly defined client channels will enable us to enhance our service and coverage of our core intermediary and Investment Trusts businesses," Berens said.

Larkin and his group will focus on building relationships across client channels including advisory and discretionary fund panelling, insurance and platforms and wealth managers.

Jamie Farquhar will now lead the fund panelling team and Nick Keem will now lead the wealth management team, reporting to Larkin. A new head of the insurance and platforms team will be announced in due course.

Alex Barry, formerly head of UK Wholesale Sales, will relocate to a New York-based funds sales role looking after key strategic relationships.

Also as part of this realignment, Mike Parsons, formerly head of UK intermediary sales, will take over as head of the newly established field sales team, reporting to Berens. This team will work in strategic partnership with both the GSRM team and the Investment Trust team to service JP Morgan AM’s primary UK retail market channels. This group includes Andy McNulty, who will lead the national discretionary fund manager sales team; Rob Sedgley, who will lead the IFA Sales team; and Stuart Podmore, who will lead the nationals and network sales team.

Larkin was previously head of strategic partnerships at Neptune Investment Management, where he led a sales team responsible for developing relationships with key IFAs, nationals and networks, life companies and platform businesses.