JPMorgan is, according to the league tables, the leading arranger of emerging-market debt, with a good spread of primary market business in Latin America, Asia and emerging Europe for sovereign, corporate and financial institutions. It's also widely know to be one of the two dominant traders - along with Citigroup - in all emerging-market debt classes including local currency instruments.
Both predecessor banks were big traders and if one plus one makes only one and a half, the new bank's secondary market share in emerging market fixed income could exceed 20% in 2001.
It produces well-followed research and has recently shown some innovation its provision of indices for emerging-market investors.
"The business approach is, in our minds, a global one, whereas many other firms focus on a particular region or strength," says Moctar Fall, who runs the global emerging-market capital markets group from New York. To be fair, the old Chase and JPMorgan emerging-market businesses were mainly focused on Latin America, while JPMorgan was stronger in eastern Europe. Neither could claim dominance in Asia. Fall admits that "it will be difficult for any one firm to be number one across all the emerging-market regions," but claims that JPMorgan has fewer weak spots than most of its competitors.
