JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon plans to sell a portion of shares in the U.S. bank for the first time since he joined the Wall Street giant nearly two decades ago.
Currently, Mr. Dimon and his family hold about 8.6 million shares of JPMorgan stock, worth about $1.21 billion based on the current market price. Their planned stock sale would be worth about $140 million, leaving them with remaining holdings of about $1.07 billion.
“Mr. Dimon continues to believe the company’s prospects are very strong, and his stake in the company will remain very significant,” JPMorgan said in the filing.
Mr. Dimon, 67, one of the most prominent voices in corporate America, joined the bank in 2004. He was promoted to CEO in 2005. A year later, he assumed the roles of chair and president of JPMorgan.
He turned JPMorgan into the largest U.S. bank in terms of assets and deposits, steered JPMorgan through the 2008 financial crisis, and was integral in the rescue of First Republic Bank this year, which helped quell turmoil fueled by the collapse of several regional banks.
JPMorgan’s shares have increased by about 250 percent during Mr. Dimon’s leadership, more than 10 times higher than the S&P 500 Financials Index’s gain, which made him a billionaire. The 67-year-old bank chief has an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion, according to Forbes.
In 2009, Mr. Dimon purchased $11.5 million of the bank stock as a signal of confidence when JPMorgan’s shares lost 27 percent in 10 trading days. In 2016, he made the same move, buying $38 million when the bank stock tumbled to the lowest price in more than two years.
Succession plans of Wall Street giants have come into focus after James Gorman announced plans to hand over the reins at Morgan Stanley and Peter Orszag became CEO at Lazard earlier this month.
Shares of JPMorgan slid by more than 3 percent for the day. So far this year, the bank shares have risen by 1.4 percent, outperforming the S&P 500 Banks Index, which has declined by 18 percent.
Warning of Multiple Threats Facing Global Economy
Mr. Dimon’s stock sale comes as he has repeatedly warned about multiple threats facing the United States and the global economy, including geopolitical risks, government high debt levels, and high inflation.During JPMorgan’s third-quarter earnings call two weeks ago, he warned that the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East could be disruptive, warning of “far-reaching impacts on energy and food markets, global trade, and geopolitical relationships.”
“This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades,” Mr. Dimon said.
Days ago, at the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia on Oct. 24, he sounded the alarm about governments’ high debt levels, expressing doubts that governments and central banks worldwide could address the current economic downturn with persistent inflation and weakening growth.
“Fiscal spending is more than it’s ever been in peacetime with the highest debt levels we ever had by governments, and there’s this omnipotent feeling that central banks and governments can manage through all this stuff,” Mr. Dimon said.
Speaking at the summit, he also criticized central banks such as the Federal Reserve for being “dead wrong” in their financial forecasts as the actual number is far different from the Fed’s projection. In July, he mentioned quantitative tightening, the monetary policy that the Fed uses to handle inflation, as one of the threats to the U.S. economy.
