Disclosure
Dimon: $5B Mortgage Penalties Led Him to Never Trust the Government Again
“They made us pay five billion dollars on the more, the bad mortgages that Bear Stearns had done, and that's what made me make the statement I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't, put it this way, I don't know how to say this, I wouldn't really trust the governmen…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dimon: Bank One held more credit risk than Citibank under aggressive accounting
“I quickly realized that BankOne had more U.S. Corporate credit risk
Than Citibank did.
And they, the way they accounted for it was unbelievably aggressive.
And, you know, so they had less capital, less reserves, less this.
They were calling these things profit…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dimon: Banks earning 30% ROE pre-2007 mostly went bankrupt in 2008
“If you look at the history of banks from up until 2007, a lot of banks were earning 30% equity.
Most of them went bankrupt.
We never did that much.
Okay.
But in oh eight and oh nine, we were fine and they weren't.”
What-if
Dimon: An Unrescued Bear Stearns Would Have Triggered Immediate Financial Collapse
“It would have been gone, and the crisis would have just unfolded”
Assertion Supported
Dimon: 80% of Federal Mortgage Settlement Targeted Bear and WaMu Conduct
“80% of what they're asking for related to Bear Stearns and Wamuu, not JPMorgan Chase.”
Opinion
Dimon: The $2T private credit market is not a systemic risk
“So there, it may, there may be something in there that would become a problem one day. I don't think it's systemic. So that two trillion, the mortgage market when the time it blew up was, I'm going to say, nine trillion, and a trillion dollars was lost.”
Opinion
Dimon: US critical infrastructure protections are inadequate for cyber war
“But it is, you're talking about grids and communications companies and water and even part of the military establishment. The protections are not what you need. If we ever get any kind of war where cyber is involved, and China is very good at it, and so is Rus…”
Assertion Partly supported
Dimon: Venture capitalists caused SVB and First Republic runs by telling startups to withdraw
“What happened with Silicon Valley Bank and kind of First Republic is some of these large venture capital companies, call them there hundreds of them, maybe a thousand, told their constituent clients that they invested in, who all banked in Silicon Valley and F…”
Opinion
Dimon: SVB and First Republic took excessive interest-rate risk known to regulators
“Both those had, they took too much interest rate exposure, known to management, and it was known to the regulators, and, you know, ah, and fixable.”
Opinion
Dimon: Citigroup's conglomerate acquisitions like truck leasing lacked strategic fit and added risk
“Whereas, you know, Citi had consumer, consumer finance, that didn't fit. Life insurance, that didn't fit. Property, that didn't, they eventually got rid of them all. Sandy just wanted to do more of them. You know, he bought an American general, which did truck…”
Disclosure
Dimon: JPMorgan stress tests fat tails beyond Fed requirements like 8% rates
“And so I always look at what I call the fat tails, and manage that we can handle all the fat tails, and not the stress test the Fed gives us, but all the fat tails.
Markets down 50%, interest rates up to eight percent, credit spreads back to worst ever.
Of cou…”
Insight
Dimon: You Can Drive a Truck Through Accounting Rules
“And accounting, you know, of course, accountants hate it when I say this, you can drive a truck through accounting rules.”
Assertion Partly supported
Dimon: JPMorgan merger required 75% board vote to deny him CEO role
“Inside the merge agreement, and this is almost unheard of, when we get the premium, is that to not have me become CEO 18 months later, 75% of the board would have to vote me out. And the board was eight Bank One people and eight J.P. Morgan people.”
Assertion Partly supported
Dimon: Big investment banks increased leverage from 12x to 35x before 2008
“The leverage, if you may not remember this, but the leverage, because of accounting rules in Basel III, Basel I, investment banks, particularly the banks, the big investment banks, went from 12 times leverage to 35 times leverage.”
Assertion Supported
Dimon: JPMorgan Wrote Off Bear Stearns' Entire $12B Tangible Book Value
“It was three hundred billion of assets and a twelve billion dollar book, tangible book value. We wrote off the whole tangible book value in the, when we bought the company to pay, we had to liquidate the loans.”
Disclosure
Dimon: JPMorgan Would Still Rescue the Financial System, but With Legal Protections
“If the government called me up, they did it again. If they called me again and said, we need your help to save our country, well of course I'm gonna, I'm a patriot that way. I just, I would just try to come up with some ways to avoid the punishment by the next…”
Assertion Supported
Dimon: JPMorgan bought WaMu at a $30B discount to book value
“We bought it for a thirty billion dollar discount to tangible book value. Because they had debt, and we left the debt behind. And so, and that thirty billion was approximately what the mortgage loss was gonna be.”
Assertion Supported
Dimon met with Jeff Bezos about becoming Amazon president
“I went to visit Jeff Bezos, who was looking for a president at the time. He and I hit it off. We've been friends ever since. He's an exceptional human being.”
Disclosure
Dimon invested half his net worth into Bank One stock as incoming CEO
“And I put half my money in the stock at the time. Yeah, you, I tied my, I was going to be the captain of the ship, I was going to go down with the ship, You know, I made it clear to everyone I was here permanently, and it'll be what it is, and so I got to work…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dimon: Bank One's 21-Member Board Was Divided With 11 Hating 10
“I, there were 21 directors. 11 hated the other 10.”
Assertion Supported
Dimon: Wall Street bridge loan book dropped from $450B in 2007 to $40B
“Like in oh seven, the bridge book of Wall Street was four hundred and fifty billion dollars. Today it's forty billion.”
Disclosure
Dimon: JPMorgan Chase bans side deals and transaction-specific compensation
“So today at JPMorgan Chase, there are no, you know, we do do things, but, and I know some of my partners in the room here, but we all know about it. There are no winks. There are no nods. There are no side deals. There's almost no one paid on a particular thin…”
Assertion Supported
Dimon: JPMorgan raised $11B equity days after acquiring WaMu
“The next day, or two days later, I went in the market, raised another eleven billion dollars of equity, which I didn't really need, but again, this is my conservatism I was like, you know what, this could get even worse, and I don't want to be short capital li…”
Disclosure
Dimon: JPMorgan hired 500 venture bankers but admits SVB is still better
“We have a whole campus in Palo Alto now. We've hired 500 innovation bankers. We cover venture capital companies. We're not as good as they are yet. We're gonna get there because we're organized slightly differently”
Jamie Dimon