There’s been plenty of speak not too long ago about when Jamie Dimon will retire. Will it’s two years, three or 5?
The reality is, nobody actually is aware of – not even Dimon himself, individuals near him inform On The Cash.
The truth that banking’s finest CEO is aping the indecisiveness of Hamlet on the retirement query is nothing new for the individuals at JPMorgan Chase. He’s 69 and he has been on the prime of the nation’s largest and most affluent financial institution since 2006, so he has to go away someday, perhaps quickly.
Or perhaps not, Dimon privately concedes, my sources say.
Sure, the case for Dimon to go away sooner relatively than later is fairly robust, and it’s one thing these individuals say he grapples with continually. He can be going out on prime, after all. JPM is on observe to earn $1 billion-plus per week given first 2025 quarter outcomes, which have been consistent with its 2024 efficiency the place the financial institution earned $58 billion.
It’s a becoming finish to an extended profession of success following Dimon’s firing from Citigroup by the hands of his one-time mentor, Sandy Weill. Citi’s loss was JPMorgan’s achieve. With out Dimon’s deft administration, Citigroup would ultimately fall sufferer to the excesses of the mortgage-bond market, needing a number of authorities bailouts to outlive the 2008 monetary disaster and its aftershocks.
Dimon had by then resurrected his profession at JPMorgan. He managed to keep away from the mania and assembled what he proudly calls a “fortress balance” sheet that was capable of soak up the worst of the disaster. JPMorgan was so robust on the time that the federal government leaned on it to scoop up troubled lenders to maintain the banking system from collapsing.
There have been a number of missteps alongside the best way (the London Whale buying and selling fiasco and a few regulatory infractions). However Dimon’s regular hand — even by way of private well being points (he’s survived most cancers and coronary heart surgical procedure) — has made JPM the gold customary in banking worldwide.
But, the case that he ought to step away later relatively than sooner is equally robust, and it’s one Dimon additionally acknowledges. His well being is nice, and Dimon’s huge data of banking is unsurpassed. He merely is aware of the way to run a posh group, a financial institution with multitudes of enterprise strains and he’s immersed within the enterprise higher than anybody else.
“I’ve never seen him so focused,” is how one JPM banking supply described a latest assembly with Dimon.
Dimon has danced across the retirement problem in public, underscoring his interior Hamlet. He has advised that he has round 4 years to go as CEO, however then he has backed off of that, saying it could be sooner or perhaps later, relying on what his board of administrators says.
He says he has successors in place, the frontrunner being Marianne Lake, JPM’s head of client banking, and that the financial institution will ultimately want a brand new chief.
However he additionally says he’s versatile on timing, and can possible be chairman even after he offers up the CEO title. In line with one supply on the financial institution: “The board doesn’t want him to retire.”
As they are saying within the newsroom, the Dimon-retirement story is “developing.”
