Business

JPMorgan commodities chief to step down after 27 years

Blythe Masters, one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, is riding into the sunset.

Masters, 45, JPMorgan’s global head of commodities, said Wednesday she will step down after 27 years at the bank once it completes the $3.5 billion sale of units she oversees to Mercuria Energy Group.

Masters “has informed us of her intention to leave the firm, take some well-deserved time off and consider future opportunities,” CEO Jamie Dimon and investment-banking head Daniel Pinto said in a statement.

The veteran exec, who started at JPM as a summer intern, had tried in February to start a second act in her career by joining the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Global Markets Advisory Committee, but didn’t make the leap after a public outcry arose just 24 hours after the plan was hatched.

Much of the furor centered on JPMorgan’s agreement to pay $410 million — the largest fine ever — to resolve Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allegations last year that her unit manipulated energy markets over a three-year period.

The bank settled without admitting or denying guilt in the matter.

The commodities unit was a sleepy backwater operation until 2008 when the bank bought Bear Stearns for the bargain bailout price of $10 a share.

With the Bear purchase, Masters’ unit got an energy-trading platform and large positions in the precious metals markets in order to compete better against commodities giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Earlier in her career, Masters, an avid horseback rider, worked on the bank’s derivatives desk where she excelled at creating exotic credit products.

Masters was reportedly part of the firm’s team that pioneered structured finance instruments, which some on Wall Street exploited by writing the bad loans that were the underlying securities to the credit derivatives, thus fueling the housing bubble and the financial crisis of 2008.