More Shoes Drop from JPM-Bear

Ex-Bear Stearns head of trading and senior MD Adam Groothuis – a veteran in the underserved CentAm and Caribbean secondary markets – has left JPMorgan, where he was employed for just two days. The departure, apparently to Royal Bank of Scotland, is further evidence of JPMorgan’s failure to bolt Bear’s strong Caribbean franchise onto its existing LatAm presence. John Joseph, a fixed income salesperson, is also heard accepting a JPMorgan job before moving to RBS, while ex-Bear trader John Modell followed the same route to Barclays. Veteran banker AJ Mediratta, former senior managing director and head of international debt capital markets at Bear, meanwhile jumped to the buyside. He is rolling out a new LatAm dedicated private equity vehicle focused on high yield projects for New York-based hedge fund Greylock Capital, targeting a $400m-$500m raise. Meanwhile, ex-senior managing director Carl Ross – Bear’s well known former head of research – has moved to Oppenheimer, the integrated financial services holdings company, where he is a managing director at its Atlanta International subsidiary. Groothuis, Mediratta and Ross have strong client relationships and were instrumental in building Bear’s Caribbean niche.