[AMSTERDM] JPMorgan Chase will soon open a new office in Amsterdam after an expansion in the region coupled with the bank’s stricter return-to-office mandate left the biggest Wall Street lender short of desks in the Netherlands.
The move into a larger space in Amsterdam’s World Trade Center became “necessary” after JPMorgan’s push to bring employees back into the office five days a week, said Wendy Hohmann, the newly appointed head of the bank’s Dutch business and one of the few female investment banking leaders in Europe.
“We have a rotation scheme because we simply don’t have enough desks,” Hohmann said in an interview. “It’s also a consequence in terms of the growth we have delivered.”
JPMorgan has more than tripled its staff in the Netherlands over the past decade. It currently employs about a hundred people, the majority of whom are in its corporate banking division. The new 3,000-square-metre office – located at the WTC’s Tower 10 – is 75 per cent bigger than the current one and can seat more than 150 people. It is set to open on July 14.
“At JPMorgan, there’s really an agenda to invest in Europe,” said Hohmann, who recently replaced Cassander Verwey as head of the Dutch business. Verwey was elevated to co-head of mergers & acquisitions in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
While the firm’s corporate banking team in the country is already tapping into mid-market companies, it is now seeking to expand its 15-strong investment banking team to capitalise on the opportunity as well. It is in the process of hiring a few more bankers to deepen its mid-market penetration, Hohmann said.
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JPMorgan has 22 nationalities in its Amsterdam team, with over 40 per cent being female, according to the company.
The bank launched on site private banking operations in the Netherlands in 2019. It has grown its client base by more than 25 per cent over the past 12 months, Hohmann said. JPMorgan intends to almost double the size of the private banking team from five bankers currently.
Hohmann, who also heads JPMorgan’s investment banking team in the Benelux region that comprises Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, said deals were picking up and touted a “good pipeline.” She said some assets were being sold despite the current macroeconomic environment because “there’s so much private equity money out there that needs to be invested.”
A former ABN Amro banker, Hohmann started her career at JPMorgan in London in 2010. She rose through the ranks to oversee the bank’s deal flow in the business services sector across EMEA and then returned to Amsterdam in 2021 as head of M&A and corporate finance for the Benelux region.
As businesses around the world start to ditch pandemic-era flexible work policies, they are also having to find real estate to accommodate all the staff heading back to office.
JPMorgan told all its staff in January to return to office five days a week, saying “it is the best way to run the company.” Earlier this year, chief executive officer Jamie Dimon went viral when he spoke of the perils of working from home. He argued that the hybrid-work option that was available to many of its employees globally had to end as it didn’t work for young people, for management and innovation.
New York-based JPMorgan, which employs over 300,000 people globally, is also taking more office space in London’s Canary Wharf neighbourhood in order to deal with overspill from its own building nearby. HSBC Holdings is in talks to lease more space in London as it anticipates a potential 7,700-desk shortfall when it moves to a new headquarters in the City, Bloomberg News has reported previously. BLOOMBERG
