News Headlines

Dimon Keeps Chairmanship, Challenged By Shareholders

Reporter: Associated Press

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The CEO of JPMorgan Case has survived an effort by shareholders to strip him of the title of board chairman.

At today's shareholders' meeting in Florida, Jamie Dimon also won an endorsement of his pay package last year, which totaled $23 million.

The meeting comes five days after he revealed that the bank had suffered a $2 billion trading loss. Most of the shareholder ballots were cast in the weeks before he made that announcement.

He was confronted at today's meeting by shareholders upset about the trading loss.

Rev. Seamus Finn, who represented shareholders from a Catholic organization, said investors had heard apologies before from Dimon for the foreclosure crisis and other problems. Finn said, "We heard the same refrain" -- a vow to learn from the mistakes, and to never let it happen again.

Dimon told shareholders that the company's mistakes were "self-inflicted." He told reporters later, "The buck always stops with me."

He got something of a vote of confidence from President Barack Obama in an interview that aired today on ABC's "The View." Obama said JPMorgan is one of the "best-managed banks," and that Dimon is "one of the smartest bankers" -- and "they still lost $2 billion and counting."