JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, under fire after his firm disclosed that it incurred a $2 billion loss from risky trades, admitted in a TV interview Friday that the company had been “sloppy” and shown “bad “judgment.”
The massive losses stemmed from derivatives bets, made at the company’s chief investment office in London, that failed. The news sent JPMorgan shares down more than nine percent Friday and has raised the ire of US and UK regulators.
“We know we were sloppy, we know we were stupid, we know there was bad judgement,” a contrite Dimon said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press,” taped Friday. NBC released excerpts of the interview ahead of Sunday’s airing.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
When asked by host David Gregory if the bank had broken any laws or violated any SEC accounting rules, Dimon responded, “We don’t know if any of that’s true yet.”
“Of course regulators should look at something like this, that’s their job … they will come to their own conclusion,” Dimon said, adding that “we intend to fix it, learn from it and be a better company when it’s done.”
JPMORGAN’S $2.3 BILLION TRADING LOSS TO SPARK NEW WAR BETWEEN WALL STREET AND WASHINGTON
DIMON, ‘LONDON WHALE’ COULD BE ON CHOPPING BLOCK
Dimon had taped an interview with Gregory on Wednesday, according to CNBC, one day before the beleaguered CEO hastily arranged a conference call with analysts and shareholders to disclose that the bank’s trading losses.
According to Gregory, Dimon was aware of the losses when he taped the initial interview, which focused on broader economic issues, but was not allowed to speak about them due to federal disclosure rules.
Dimon taped a second interview on Friday in New York to discuss the firm’s trading losses and the ensuing fallout, Gregory said Friday.
Since the firm disclosed the losses, the SEC has launched a preliminary investigation into the firm’s accounting practices and Fitch has downgraded several of the bank’s ratings.
On Thursday’s call, Dimon said the so-called synthetic hedge that caused the losses was “poorly executed” and “poorly monitored.” He said the bank has an extensive review underway of what went wrong, and that there were “many errors,” “sloppiness” and “bad judgment” on the bank’s part.