A senior member of JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services’ sales team has departed for a newly created role spearheading Citi’s fund administration service, and the hunt is on for a replacement.

David Edwards resigned from JPMorgan WSS the Friday before last, joining Citi’s Securities & Fund Services division as head of investor sales for Australasia, reporting to divisional head Martin Carpenter.

Carpenter said Edwards’ role was created to capitalise on Citi’s recent launch of full fund administration services for the Australian market.

“Citi now offers clients an end-to-end service on the one Citi platform – from Australian sub-custody to global custody, from middle office investment administration to backoffice services including for alternative investments,” Carpenter said.

JPMorgan WSS head of sales and relationship management, Bryan Gray, said he was leaning toward making an internal replacement for Edwards, who’d been at the business roughly two years, with a focus on winning new business from non-existing clients.

However he said that ever since JPMorgan WSS had announced its current hiring spree of 100 extra people over the balance of 2010, unsolicited enquiries had been trickling in from competitors, so he did not rule out securing expertise from outside the organisation.