JP Morgan will buy local brokerages in emerging markets as part of plans to increase earnings in investment banking by more than $800m (€625m).

Bill Winters, co-chief executive of investment banking at JP Morgan, told the Merrill Lynch Banking and Financial Services Investor Conference last week in New York the bank wanted to be a local broker in markets such as Russia, China, India and Mexico. He said: "Our investment has been self-financing and organic but if we see an opportunity for a partnership or acquisition in one of these markets, we will not hesitate to take it." The bank's investment banking division made record revenues of $4bn in the first nine months of this year, an increase of a third on the same period last year. Management has set the business a return on equity target of 20% by the end of next year. JP Morgan will also invest in energy trading, securitisations, pension advisory and risk management, and retail structured products. Winters said the bank's original plan to expand energy trading was three quarters complete and year-to-date client revenues were 50% above its earnings for last year. • Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, told the conference that public infrastructure investment had the potential to evolve into a significant business. He also wanted to expand investment banking into the middle-market sector. He said: "Being an adviser, financier and co-investor allows us to realise opportunities that did not exist when banking was pure advisory." Blankfein saw opportunities to expand fixed income, currency and commodities in new markets and products, such as renewable energy trading, distressed investing and emerging markets, which would play a more central role in the bank's securities business.