JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) Acquiring All of Cazenove for $1.67 Billion

After a successful joint venture partnership over the last five years, JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) announced it will be acquiring the rest of Cazenove, an investment bank based in the UK.

Terms of the deal were JP Morgan would pay $8.98 a share to the 1,500 shareholders in the company, which comes to $1.67 billion.The new company will retain the JP Morgan Cazenove brand. There will be very little shuffling of roles under the deal, other than those that may leave for more conservative banking pastures, as Cazenove was known to be very conservative while JP Morgan has a culture of deal making in a way that may make some of the employees nervous.

From the point of view of JP Morgan making any wholesale executive changes, there’s nothing in the works to make that a reality at this time.

Cazenove Chairman David Mayhew, who has been at the 190-year-old firm for 40 years, will continue on in his role, while it hasn’t been made clear what will happen to CEO Naguib Kheraj, who will help manage the transition and integration of the two companies. With the heads of the cash equities and investment banking unit currently reporting to Kheraj, it’s hard to know if he’ll have any role or what it would be after the acquisition because will report directly to executives from JP Morgan once the deal is finalized. The Financial Times reported that Kheraj will eventually leave the corporation, but there hasn’t been any confirmation if that will be the case.

No changes will be made in key roles, possibly other than Kheraj, as the British investment banking unit will remain under the management of Charles Harman, while the head of cash equities for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Alan Carruthers, will stay in that position.

According to Kheraj, “…all corporate clients our business will remain fundamentally unchanged — same people, same client approach, and same brand. In institutional equities, the combination of the businesses will enable us to improve and broaden our service to clients.”

This was evidently communicated in order to retain employees that may have concerns about how far the changes may go and interfere with the culture of Cazenove.

One change that has been announced by JP Morgan will be merging the research and cash equities divisions in their current operation which cover  Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in order to grow outside its current core market in the U.S.