Executive pay : JP Morgan Chase cut CEO Dimon's pay to $11.8 mln in 2013

Dimon narrowly the best-paid bank CEO

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon's pay fell to $11.8 million in 2013, compared with $18.7 million the year before, according to a Securities and Exchanges Commission filing on Wednesday.

The CEO received a base annual salary of $1.5 million, stock awards valued at $10 million, and other compensation, according to SEC methodology.

Dimon's pay was cut by the firm's board after the massive London Whale losses that cost the firm more than $6 billion. The firm's CFO Marianne Lake earned $8.23 million last year, which includes $730,000, as well as a $1.3 million bonus and more than $4 million in stocks awards and options. Former co-CEO of the investment bank who recently left the firm, Michael J. Cavanagh, earned $16.2 million in 2013.

Mr. Dimon's pay is higher than that awarded to other CEOs of giant banks. Bank of America's Brian Moynihan was paid $13.1 million last year, Citigroup's Michael Corbat got $17.6 million, Morgan Stanley's James Gorman got $18 million and Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein $19,928,813. That means Mr. Dimon got paid $71,187 more than Mr. Blankfein, although the cash component of Mr. Blankfein's pay was $6.8 million higher.

J. P. Morgan covers sale costs for Dimon's Chicago mansion

(Crain's) — Jamie Dimon made nearly $21 million last year in cash and stock awards as CEO of J. P. Morgan Chase & Co., but the giant bank still covered $421,458 in real estate commissions and related costs in selling his Gold Coast mansion.

In the company's proxy, it said the payment of commissions, appraisals, inspections, title search and other ordinary costs of selling a home was “in accordance with the firm's general policy on relocation expenses, applicable to all eligible employees who relocate at the request of the firm.”

Mr. Dimon, 55, moved from New York to Chicago in 2000 to become CEO of Bank One Corp., then Chicago's biggest bank. Five years later, he engineered Bank One's $58-billion sale to New York-based J. P. Morgan, a deal that positioned him to become CEO of the combined bank and enabled him to move home to New York.

He kept the Chicago home for several more years to allow his children to finish high school in Chicago. Mr. Dimon sold the mansion last year to billionaire energy-industry magnate Michael Polsky for $6.8 million after Mr. Dimon slashed the original asking price of $13.5 million a few times before reaching agreement.

Mr. Dimon paid $4.7 million for the home in 2000, property records show.

J. P. Morgan's agreement to cover Mr. Dimon's transactional costs was first reported by Bloomberg News.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon received 51% raise

The chief executive officer (CEO) at JPMorgan Chase received a 51 per cent raise in 2010, it has been revealed.

Jamie Dimon was handed a $23 million compensation package after the bank resumed paying monetary bonuses - making him the highest paid man in such a position among the top US banks since 2007.

The move came after two years of pressure, in which lawmakers and regulators sought to limit compensation.

Other CEOs to receive substantial handouts included Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs Group - who pocketed $19 million - and head of Wells Fargo John Stumpf ($17.5 million).

Included in Mr Dimon's sum was a $5 million cash bonus, while his restricted stock payout was elevated to $17 million - an increase of 20 per cent.

Bloomberg News recently reported that Mr Blankfein received a $5.4 million bonus as part of his compensation package from Goldman Sachs last year.

Chase to charge more for checking services

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(Crain's) — Banking is going to cost more for J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. checking customers as the bank raises fees for checking account services and transactions.

“We are taking a fresh look at our checking accounts as a result of changes in competition, regulation and customer behavior,” said Chase in a statement provided by a spokesman. “We want to offer Chase customers the best accounts in the industry while earning a reasonable return on our business.” He wouldn't provide specifics about what those were.

The changes begin Feb. 8 for basic checking accounts, and Chase Free Classic Checking and Chase Free Extra Accounts will transition to Chase Total Checking accounts. The accounts will give customers four options to avoid the monthly $12 fee, including having direct deposit with a $500 monthly minimum.

Fees also will rise for automatic overdraft protection, insufficient funds, stop payments and wire transfers.

J. P. Morgan Chase's huge outage

(Crain's) — J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. has said its online banking was restored early Wednesday after a technical glitch disabled the service for more than a day.

But service seemed spotty, with the Web site denying customers access to their account information for most of Wednesday. A Chase source said that it may take several attempts to access the service.

A Chase spokesman said that the bank - Chicago's largest bank based on ATM and branch locations - will refund any late fees that customers incur from the problem.

Chase's online banking system went down late Monday night and was unavailable on Tuesday, forcing the bank's 16.5 million customers to transact business by ATM, teller or telephone. Chase said service returned just after midnight Wednesday. The issue did not prevent any automatic payments from being sent out, the spokesman said.

Chase said in a statement that software from a third-party database company corrupted information in its systems and prevented users from logging on. As a result there was a long recovery process, but the bank said that "at no time was customer data at risk." Chase apologized for the inconvenience.

Still, outraged bank customers took to their Twitter accounts to share their frustration. Some wondered what would happen to automated bill payments scheduled for that day.

The lack of explanation and the length of the outage didn't please Jacob Jegher, senior analyst at Celent, a Boston-based financial research and consulting firm.

"Many customers will incur fees resulting from late bill payments," Mr. Jegher wrote in a comment posted on the firm's Web site. "This is something the bank will have to address with customers and is clearly a huge inconvenience."

Morgan Stanley pays $14 million oil-trading fine

WASHINGTON -- In another black eye for Wall Street, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission late Thursday announced a $14 million fine against Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. to settle accusations of hiding its complex oil trades.

The settlement, in which Morgan Stanley did not admit or deny the accusations, comes as oil prices have continued their steady upwards march and have some oil analysts again saying that excessive speculation is again pushing up energy prices. One recent estimate put the cost of that to consumers and businesses at $300 billion annually.

In an announcement after U.S. markets had closed, the CFTC said that a trader from Morgan Stanley conspired on Feb. 6, 2009, with a counterpart from Swiss financial firm UBS Securities to hide from authorities a prohibited trading activity.

Continue to full article.

Synopsis: The CFTC is seeking to take a more active role in the regulation of markets, and this fine against Morgan Stanley (UBS was also fined) could be a sign of this new attitude.

J.P. Morgan tops rankings of largest hedge fund managers

Ranking of the world's largest hedge fund managers illustrates the ravages the financial crisis wreaked on firms in the past two years

Largest hedge fund managers
(in $ billions as of Dec. 31, 2009)
1. J.P. Morgan $53.5

2. Bridgewater Associates $43.6
3. Paulson & Co. $32.0
4. Brevan Howard $27.0
5. Soros Fund Mgmt. $27.0
6. Man Group $25.3
7. Och-Ziff Capital Mgmt. Group $23.1
8. D.E. Shaw Group $23.0
9. BlackRock (BGI) $21.0
10. Farallon Capital Mgmt. $20.7
11. Baupost Group $20.0
12. Goldman Sachs Asset Mgmt. $17.8
13. BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. $17.3
14. Canyon Partners $17.0
15. Landsdowne Partners $15.0
16. Renaissance Technologies $15.0
17. Fortress Investment Group $13.8
18. Moore Capital Mgmt. $12.4
19. Viking Global Investors $12.4
20. Citadel Investment Group $12.2
21. SAC Capital Partners $12.0
22. GLG Partners $11.5
23. Tudor Investment $10.0

24. Total $482.6B

Pensions & Investments' list of the world's largest hedge fund firms — those with at least $20 billion as of Dec. 31 — shows that assets managed by the 11 companies totaled $316.2 billion, virtually the same as the $316 billion managed by the 10 hedge fund managers that made P&I's last ranking, based on data as of Dec. 31, 2007.
The flat growth disguises what clearly was a period of intense turmoil for many hedge fund managers, some of which were rocked by performance woes in the last months of 2008 and first few months of 2009, as well as by client redemptions.
The result is that the composition of the list of the hedge fund managers with more than $20 billion under management changed significantly:
•Hedge fund assets of three prominent firms — Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Renaissance Technologies Corp. and Citadel Investment Group — fell below the $20 billion cutoff, dropping the three from the ranking.
•Four hedge fund companies — institutionally-oriented Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP and Baupost Group LLC, as well as retail-focused Soros Fund Management LLC and Man Group PLC — joined P&I's list.
•In addition to the three firms that left the top manager list, three others remained above the $20 billion mark despite suffering asset declines ranging from 30% to 43%. The collective decline of these six managers over the two-year period was $74 billion.
Holding its No. 1 ranking on the latest list was J.P. Morgan, which managed $53.5 billion in hedge funds as of Dec. 31 — $32.5 billion by J.P. Morgan Asset Management and $21 billion by Highbridge Capital Management LLC. This is an increase of 18.9% from J.P. Morgan's year-end 2007 total of $45 billion.
Bridgewater Associates Inc. remained in second place, with hedge fund assets of $43.6 billion as of Dec. 31. Bridgewater was among the hedge fund managers that showed healthy growth during the period, rising 21%.
Paulson & Co. Inc. increased assets 10% to end 2009 with $32 billion, pushing the firm up to third from eighth.
Filling the next three spots on the list are the three new firms: Brevan Howard and Soros, each with $27 billion; and Man Group, with $25.3 billion.
Paulson's elevation in P&I's ranking and the addition of the three new firms resulted from asset declines of the five managers that had filled the third through seventh spots on the 2007 list.
•Farallon Capital Management LLC experienced an asset decline of 42.5% to end 2009 with $20.7 billion, to rank 10th in the current ranking.
•Assets managed in hedge funds by Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC dropped 30.2% to $23.1 billion, moving the firm into seventh place.
•D.E. Shaw Group, which had held the fourth spot, slipped to eighth with an asset decline of 30.3% to $23 billion as of Jan. 1, the date provided by the firm.
•Formerly in sixth place, Goldman Sachs' hedge fund assets declined 45.2% to $17.8 billion at year-end 2009, dropping the firm from the ranking. RenTech's hedge fund assets fell 52.2% to $15 billion, moving it out of the ranking after having been seventh in 2007.
In the ninth slot is BlackRock Inc., which managed $21 billion in hedge funds as of Dec. 31. BlackRock's presence is largely because of its acquisition last year of Barclays Global Investors Inc., which ranked ninth on the 2007 list with $20 billion.
Citadel Investment Group held the 10th position in the 2007 ranking with $20 billion of hedge fund assets, but with assets totaling $12.2 billion of as Dec. 31, it fell off the list.
The fourth new entrant on P&I's list, Baupost Group, just made the cut with $20 billion under management as of Sept. 30, the most recent date for which data are available from an industry source.
P&I also analyzed, where possible, how much each of the largest managers managed for institutional investors, including pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and institutionally oriented hedge funds-of-funds managers.
Collectively, assets managed for institutional investors by the 11 largest firms declined 22% to $151 billion or about half of total hedge fund assets as of Dec. 31, down from $194.9 billion or 62% of total assets two years earlier.
Bridgewater tops the hedge fund manager list sorted by institutional assets. All of Bridgewater's $43.6 billion is managed for institutions.
In terms of institutional assets, Paulson & Co. follows with $21.8 billion (68%); Brevan Howard, $21.6 billion (80%); D.E. Shaw, $19.1 billion (83%); BlackRock, $17.9 billion (85%); Och-Ziff Capital, $17.6 billion (76%); and Man Group, $7.8 billion (31%).

JPMorgan ranked top of hedge fund list

JPMorgan was the richest hedge fund manager working in the industry at the close of 2009, a new report has shown.

Figures from Pensions & Investment revealed that the financial services provider managed a total of $53.5 billion of hedge fund assets.

By the end of 2009, JPMorgan Asset Management had $32.5 billion in assets while Highbridge Capital Management looked after $21 billion worth of funds.

The total was 18.9 per cent higher than the figure in its portfolio at the end of 2007, the survey revealed.

Bridgewate Associates was ranked second in the list with $43.6 billion while third placed Paulson & Co managed $32 billion.

Further findings from the study revealed that the total assets managed by the 11 companies quizzed stood at $316.2 billion, almost the same as the $316 billion in assets seen across portfolios at the end of 2007.

Alex Ehrlich, head of Morgan Stanley's prime brokerage business, recently told the Reuters Private Equity and Hedge Funds Summit in New York that the number of hedge funds being launched is on the rise.

“We are seeing very, very strong hedge fund formation right now. The number of launches we are seeing are five times stronger than what we saw last year."

Meanwhile, a survey by Hedge Fund Intelligence revealed that global assets for the industry reached $1.82 trillion during the second half of 2009.

JPMorgan Chase CEO - Economy could still “double dip”

JPMorgan Chase will not raise its dividend until the threat of a “double dip” in the economy has subsided, the company’s chief executive officer has said.

Jamie Dimon made the comments at the financial institution’s annual investor meeting, Reuters reported.

Representatives from the bank stated that ideally the dividend would be increased from 75 cents to $1.

However, further confirmation that the financial crisis had ended, such as rising employment figures, would be needed before the bank would increase the figure.

Mr Dimon said: “We don't mind holding extra capital right now because we don't know what's going to happen. There are huge
potential negatives out there."

He added that the company is “cautious” due to uncertainty over the amounts of money needed to be maintained in reserve for future potential credit losses.

Although the economic turmoil in Greece was not an issue for the bank, the CEO did express concern over the ability of states such as California to manage debt.

Earlier in the month, JPMorgan announced the acquisition of the commodities arm of RBS Sempra for $1.7 billion.

JPMorgan Chase chief gets $10m in shares

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase's chief executive officer, has taken $10 million in shares after exercising stock options that have accrued over the course of ten years.

He has taken on an additional 250,000 shares – a move he had to make before the stock expired in March.

The windfall comes on top of his 2009 pay packet, which is set to be revealed in the next few days and is estimated to stand between $15 and $20 million, reports the Financial Times.

JPMorgan Chase shares have increased in value by around 60 per cent over the course of the past 12 months but company insiders indicated that Mr Dimon has no immediate intention of selling his stock.

It is believed that he is also likely to forgo a cash bonus for the second year in a row to help fend off potential criticism of JPMorgan Chase's pay practices.

Last month, industry analysts predicted to the Telegraph that the firm's bonus pot will stand at around $29 billion.

JP Morgan Bans Trading With Citadel

JP Morgan decided it had had enough with senior executives exiting to join Citadel Investment Group. JP Morgan responded by halting trading with the hedge fund across stocks, bonds and foreign exchange.
Starting earlier this year, a number of JP Morgan execs began moving over to Citadel. This included Derek Kaufman, who joined as senior managing director and head of the U.S. fixed income business; Bill King, who joined as senior managing director and head of securitized products; and Patrik Edsparr who became CEO for Citadel Europe and head of global fixed income. "It's a strong action for JP Morgan to get to the point where this ban gets out in the market," says Denise Valentine, senior analyst at Aite Group. "It's a dramatic statement about both firms, especially when tensions are high across the board right now."