JPMorgan Private Bank is seeking to bring wealth management investors into company financing discussions earlier and deepen coordination with the firm’s investment banking franchise as companies remain private for longer and wealth capital plays a growing role in capital formation, the new head of capital market syndicate Brad Rhine told this news service.

The effort is aimed at “institutionalizing” how the private bank engages with issuers and investment bankers across origination and distribution, allowing the firm to build relationships earlier and support companies throughout their financing lifecycle, he said.

The wealth platform is aiming to be involved while businesses are still raising private capital rather than at IPO, allowing relationships to develop over multiple financing rounds, amid the rising role of retail allocation in IPOs of all sizes, Rhine said.

The build-out of this unit comes as Rhine joined the bank earlier this year as head of capital market syndicate, after a previous role as head of equity capital markets for T. Rowe Price Investment Management, where he worked for almost five years.

He described an “interesting intersection” in equity capital markets. Years of abundant private capital allowed many growth companies to delay IPOs until they had reached much greater scale, making offerings larger than they once were. Issuers are keen on building durable shareholder bases and recognize the value of high quality, “institutional-esque” retail investors can provide.

This new approach allows the Private Bank and investment bank to present a single proposition to issuers as they move from private to public markets, he said.

Rhine described the strategy also as a “baton pass” between the firm’s businesses and pointed to the example of a recent IPO in which JPMorgan had been the company’s first corporate banking relationship, private bank clients participated in multiple private funding rounds and the private bank continued that partnership with significant participation on the IPO. This is the type of full-lifecycle relationship the bank is seeking to replicate, he said.

The goal is to engage companies earlier, improve internal connectivity and ultimately identify opportunities to provide additional products and services as clients mature, he said.

Rhine also expects to participate alongside ECM and sector banking teams during IPO pitches, allowing the private bank to present its wealth platform directly to issuers as part of a coordinated firmwide offering.

Management teams often have a clear view of the shareholder base they want represented in a transaction before formal marketing begins, making earlier engagement increasingly important, he said.

“By the time the IPO launches, the books are three-quarters baked,” Rhine said.

One of Rhine’s priorities is changing how issuers think about wealth management investors. Retail participation has historically been associated with speculative trading and short holding periods.

Rhine said that characterization no longer reflects much of today’s wealth management landscape. Retail investors have become increasingly important during periods of market volatility, often stepping into the market when institutional investors remained cautious. Many of those investors are focused on long-duration, tax-aware investing rather than short-term trading, he said.

“Retail has always been an afterthought,” Rhine said. “I want to make retail allocation a forethought instead.”

JPMorgan’s platform includes relationships with global billionaires, alongside family and multi-family offices, private bank clients and the broader Chase Wealth Management network.

“What we represent is more akin to a top-quality long-only,” Rhine said.

Rhine also pointed to lessons from the market downturn that followed the IPO boom of 2021. Many offerings during that period became heavily concentrated among a relatively small number of institutional investors as management teams took a more active role in allocation decisions, Rhine said.

“These deals became extremely concentrated. Allocated more like a biotech deal, where 25 investors took 85% to 90%, and retail got squeezed to a de minimis portion,” he said.

Rhine said the market is more grounded in fundamentals than it was during the peak of the IPO cycle and increasingly receptive to discussions about broader ownership structures.

Many of the next generation of IPO candidates are reaching the public markets later in their lifecycle after years of remaining private, making them larger, more established businesses with greater public visibility, he said.

“These companies have also been private for so long, and they’re such exciting growth companies that are part of our everyday life,” Rhine said. “And I think there’s a lot of recognition, probably by those management teams, when they look at the Mag 7 companies in terms of retail ownership.”