JPMorgan Heard Appointing Loan Expert

Rodrigo Gracia will be joining JP Morgan’s syndicated loans team, say people with knowledge of the situation. He was heard to have recently quit as vice president at Credit Agricole’s syndicated loans group after 6 years at the bank. Gracia has previously worked at JPMorgan, from July 2000 to December 2001in the syndicated finance division, where he was involved in structuring and executing syndicated loan transactions in the US and LatAm. He has also worked at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Serfin in Mexico. JPMorgan has been without a head of LatAm loan syndications since it made Ricardo Rubio redundant in late 2008 as part of a 10% reduction in global headcount, focused on investment banking and including other senior debt bankers. The bank has long been expected to replace Rubio to support an active DCM, ECM and M&A franchise. However, it is understood to have covered LatAm from its US loan desk over the last few years, given the very low level of activity in regional syndications. A JPMorgan spokeswoman declines to comment and Gracia does not return calls.