JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” started out as a minnow.
But after traders — including Bruno Iksil — masked the size of the trade in the hopes of recovering losses before their bosses found out about the deficit, it had became a whale of a tale.
Losses in the complex synthetic credit portfolio were $100 million last January but grew to $169 million a month later.
The minnow of a debt had grown to a whopping $2 billion loss by the time that JPMorgan uncovered the enormity of the massive $100 billion position, according to a 129-page internal report released yesterday by JPMorgan.
The trading scandal in the Chief Investment Office cost CIO head Ina Drew her job.
That said, the report describes risk management lapses galore at many levels of the firm, including Drew and CEO Jamie Dimon.
While global press reports identified Iksil as the London Whale, his name was not in the report because of a UK law that bars its use.
Iksil was known as the Whale because of the outsize nature of his bets.