Americas: J.P. Morgan strengthens ADR Americas team, The

Global Finance, Jul 2001 by Platt, Gordon

J.P Morgan has boosted the senior management of its ADR Americas operation, hiring Christian Starck as vice president and head of ADR North America, a new position, and Claudine Cardillo as vice president and head of ADR Latin America.

"Globally, the markets are a little slow, with many initial public offerings on hold," Starck says. "But companies need and want to come to market.'

Despite the current slowdown, some major companies are moving aggressively to build up their ADR programs, Starck says. Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, has tripled its ADRs outstanding in the past three months, he says.

Besides managing the ADR Group's North American operations, Starck is responsible for global ADR support and administration, product development and Internet initiatives, transaction management, broker marketing, and USbased client relationship management.

He joins JT Morgan from Citibank, where he headed ADR product management and served as deputy global ADR head.

Cardillo headed BNP Paribas's clearing and custody sales teams in Paris, and founded and directed the bank's Brussels operations.

J.P Morgan says its ADR Group leads the industry with 40%, or $124 billion, in ADR market capitalization as of December 2000.

The bank is breaking the Bank of New York's former monopoly in Russian ADRs, Starck says. On June 13,J.P Morgan announced that St Petersburg-based JSC Lenenergo, a Russian electric utility and power generation company, launched a sponsored ADR facility traded on the OTC market.

Meanwhile, Glasgow-based Scottish Power appointed JT Morgan as successor ADR bank for its sponsored program traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Scottish Power supplies energy to 7 million customers in Britain and in the western United States through its PacifiCorp subsidiary.

Argentina-based Siderca, which makes seamless steel pipe for the oil and gas industries, has listed American depositary shares on the NYSE.

The company raised $36.29 million when it sold 1.9 million ADSs at $19.10 each through J.P Morgan Chase.