JP Morgan snares Goldman commodity head; ramps up Asia team

JP Morgan has hired Oral Dawe from rival Goldman Sachs as its chief executive of Asia-Pacific commodities. Dawe was previously co-head of commodities for Asia alongside Allan Marson at Goldman Sachs. Marson is now the sole head of commodities for the region at the US securities dealer.

JP Morgan is aggressively developing its Asian commodities presence under global head of commodities Blythe Masters. Masters replaced David Puth as head of commodities in 2007 and was given the mandate to rapidly grow the business. Dawe will report to Masters at a business-line level and to Gaby Abdelnour, chairman and chief executive of Asia-Pacific for JP Morgan, at a regional level.

Dawe, who worked at Goldman Sachs for 10 years, will drive JP Morgan's client risk management services expansion in the region.

JP Morgan hired more than 50 sales, trading and structuring professionals in commodities worldwide last year. Last month, the US dealer hired Ouyang Xiuzhang from Goldman Sachs as head of its Asia energy trading team. It has also hired Paul Defries as an executive director in coal, emissions and freight trading from Hong Kong logistics company Noble Group.

The US dealer plans to move into the Asian physical oil market in July and is ramping up its Asian commodities desk, as are a number of other leading investment banks.

Meanwhile, Chris Neidow, head of Asian energy marketing, has expanded his business across energy products and hired Hiroki Kazekami from Goldman Sachs as an executive director to lead JP Morgan’s Tokyo team, and Stuart Smith as an executive director in charge of marketing energy products in Australia and several southeast Asian countries. Smith also joins from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of liquefied natural gas trading.

Rahul Eapan has joined JP Morgan from Standard Merchant Bank, where he was senior manager of sales and structuring, as an executive director to head the India team, and Li Bin has been hired from Huahai (Singapore) as an executive director to head the greater China team.

Other additions to energy marketing include James Luo from Goldman Sachs and Ted Huang from Barclays Capital as vice-presidents for the greater China team, and Sheena Ryu from Macquarie Bank in Seoul as a vice-president for energy and metals marketing in Korea.

On the metals side, Tim Wilson, managing director and head of global metal marketing, has relocated to Singapore to expand JP Morgan's metals business.

And the Asia commodity structuring team, headed by Lilian Xu, has recruited Kate Chen Eisenman from HSBC as an executive director with responsibilities in product development, pricing and execution.