Thar she blows — again!
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s whale of a week isn’t over yet.
Just days after a report maintained Dimon’s bonus may be cut because of his poor management of the bank’s Chief Investment Office, the CEO is facing the possibility that a final report on the CIO’s $6.2 billion trading blunder will be released this week.
The report is critical of Dimon and some on his management team.
There’s nothing like a little reputational sullying to take the buzz off what would have been a pretty good week for the 56-year-old bank boss, who is expected to announce Jan. 16 that JPMorgan Chase registered record annual profits.
The 50-page-plus report — which the board will have to approve releasing — holds Dimon, Ina Drew, the former head of the CIO, and Doug Braunstein, the CFO at the time of the bungled trades, responsible for the debacle.
Bruno Iksil, the UK-based trader inside the CIO known as the London Whale for his outsized trades, made a wrong-way bet on a derivative that led to the massive loss first discovered some eight months ago. Iksil has since left JPM, as has Drew.
The JPM board will vote on whether to release the report when it meets Jan. 15, according to Bloomberg, which first reported on the matter.
Braunstein, who had risk oversight as CFO, is likely to see a cut in his bonus, which was $9.3 million for 2011, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the possible cut to bonuses.
Braunstein assumed a new role at JPMorgan as one of the heads of investment management when the bank’s management ranks were reshuffled in the wake of the Whale trade.
A JPM spokesman declined to comment.
Dimon was one of the highest-paid CEOs on Wall Street last year, banking some $23.1 million in bonuses, records show.
Dimon didn’t do his reputation any favors in April after he was first asked about the Whale trades, describing it as nothing more than a “tempest in a teapot.” It soon morphed into something much larger.
Soon after, Dimon, one of Wall Street’s most revered CEOs, was forced to explain the fiasco to two congressional committees.
At a conference JPMorgan hosted last week, Dimon ripped his management’s handling of the Whale trades, saying they “acted like children” by attempting to hide them from more senior management.
“Instead of helping, they were running around with their head chopped off, ‘What does this mean for me personally, how’s my reputation,’” he said.