JPMorgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon survives shareholder push

The CEO of JPMorgan
Chase survived a shareholder push today to strip him of the title of
chairman of the board, five days after he disclosed a $2 billion trading
loss by the bank.

CEO Jamie Dimon also won a shareholder endorsement of his pay package from last year, which totaled $23 million, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory filings.

Dimon, unusually subdued, told shareholders at the JPMorgan annual meeting that the company's mistakes were "self-inflicted." Speaking with reporters later, he added: "The buck always stops with me."

Most of the shareholder ballots were cast in the weeks before Dimon revealed the trading loss.

His pay package passed with 91 per cent of the vote. The vote to strip him of the chairman's title won only 40 per cent support. The bank did not announce separate results from before and after the loss was revealed.

Dimon was confronted at the meeting by shareholders upset about the trading loss, which has rattled investor confidence in the bank and complicated JPMorgan's efforts to fight tougher regulation of Wall Street.

Reverend Seamus Finn, representing shareholders from the Catholic organisation Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, said that investors had heard Dimon apologise before for the foreclosure crisis and other problems.

"We heard the same refrain: We have learned from our mistakes. This will never be allowed to happen again," Finn said. "I can't help wondering if you are listening."

Lisa Lindsley, director of capital strategies for an influential union of public employees that is also a major JPMorgan shareholder, said independent board leadership was in shareholders' best interest.

"An all-powerful CEO is his own boss," she said. "Looking for an infallible CEO is a fool's errand."

Investors have pummeled JPMorgan's stock price since the loss was revealed. The stock 12 per cent in two trading days and lost almost $20 billion in market value. It bounced back today, rising 3 per cent.

AP