Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a well-known proxy advisor, has recommended that shareholders of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) vote against keeping Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon in both of those roles. The firm also recommended that shareholders vote against retaining the members of the bank’s risk board, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In an interview today, billionaire investor Warren Buffet sided with Dimon, as did JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) itself. Earlier this year, a coalition of the bank’s investors said they wanted to split the CEO and chairman roles and wanted Dimon at least out of his role as chairman.
The recommendations come in the wake of the London Whale trading incident, which cost JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) $6 billion in losses last year. Last month Dimon called the incident “stupid” and “embarrassing.”
ISS About JPMorgan Chairman And CEO Dimon
ISS said it generally recommends shareholder proposals which split the chairman and CEO position, especially if the company’s chairman is an independent director. The firm also said that because of the large size of the bank’s it’s “challenging” for one person to be both the chairman and the CEO.
ISS About JPMorgan’s Risk Board
The firm made several points about JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)’s risk board. First, they said the large size of the losses involved in the London Whale incident revealed “multiple points of failure” in the bank’s risk controls and chief investment office oversight.
ISS pointed to Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), saying that it improved its risk management process after the credit crisis and thus, was able to avoid losing so much in trading. In addition, the firm said the trading losses cause it to question how effective the bank’s risk board is and see that it was reactive rather than proactive.
The firm also questions how the risk board wasn’t aware of the risks that were carried by the positions the portfolio carried.
