JPMorgan said to cut credit traders amid emerging-market swings

[NEW YORK] JPMorgan Chase & Co cut several emerging-market credit traders, including global head Robert Milam, as volatility in the asset class bled into this year, according to people with knowledge of the moves.

Mr Milam, an 18-year veteran of JPMorgan, ran the emerging- market corporate and sovereign credit group out of New York since 2011 and previously was co-head of North America credit trading. The 39-year-old managing director left last month after two senior London-based emerging-markets credit traders, Elie Pano and Dan Steeds, went in January, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing personnel.

The reductions are being compounded by defections. A group of emerging-market bond traders and salesmen left the New York- based bank for Nomura Holdings this month, people with knowledge of that move said this week. Brian Marchiony, a spokesman for JPMorgan, declined to comment on the cuts.

Collapsing oil prices and China's economic slowdown have hammered the bonds of emerging-market companies and countries over the past year, slowing issuance, curbing trading and eroding banks' revenue. That's forced Wall Street firms to eliminate traders and salespeople.

While rivals including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs have relied on annual job reductions to pare staffs, the cuts at JPMorgan, Wall Street's largest fixed-income shop by revenue, are less regular and smaller in scale.

Peter Siedem, a managing director in distressed-credit sales, also departed recently, the people said. He joined New York-based JPMorgan 15 years ago and previously worked at Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

The employees who defected to Nomura plan to join the Japanese bank after completing garden leaves, people with knowledge of that situation said. They include traders David Matty and Jennifer Wohland, salesmen Augusto Pinto and Vinny Medeiros, and corporate-credit analyst Marcela Nagib.

BLOOMBERG