JPMorgan plans up to 20 new hires to expand Canadian asset management team By Reuters

By Nivedita Balu

TORONTO (Reuters) – JPMorgan’s expanding asset management business in Canada will add up to 20 jobs over the next 18 months, an executive said on Tuesday, as the bank launched two actively managed exchange-traded funds for income-focused investors.

“This is our first foray into having strategies (ETFs) that individual Canadian investors can access,” Travis Hughes, who heads JP Morgan Asset Management’s Canadian business, said in an interview at the launch.

Future launches in Canada will focus on actively managed ETFs, he added. “We will not launch mutual funds or other products.”

Toronto is the focus of the expansion, but jobs from analysts to executives will also be filled in Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary, Hughes said.

JPMorgan will also recruit at Canadian universities, he added.

Diversification of downside protection assets is important in the coming months because of economic uncertainty and the November US election, Hughes said.

Canada accounts for about $40 billion of JPMorgan Asset Management’s total global investments of $3.3 trillion.