JP Morgan announced that it was buying digital wealth manager Nutmeg Savings & Investments as it tries to establish a presence in the UK. The name Nutmeg was chosen because the spice, like wealth and investment services, was once rare and costly but today is affordable and widely available.
Nutmeg was founded in 2012 by Nick Hungerford and William Todd with the aim of making wealth management more accessible to all by leveraging digital platforms. The company has over 140 000 clients with around $5 billion in assets under management.
The price paid by JP Morgan wasn't disclosed, however, based on recent IPO announcements from Acorn to Robinhood, one can easily infer that this transaction was around $1 billion; give or take a few hundred millions.
The Nutmeg deal is a bit confusing considering the fact that JP Morgan is already testing Chase internally on their UK employees ahead of the launch which is scheduled later this year. Wouldn't it make more sense to just stick with Nutmeg, a brand that is popular with the locals already?