JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) shareholder T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. says it plans to vote against splitting the CEO and chairman roles, according to The Wall Street Journal. If the two roles are split, current CEO and chairman Jamie Dimon would be pushed out of the chairman role at the bank. The firm is the bank’s sixth biggest shareholder and owns a little over 2 percent of the company.
T. Rowe Price released a statement today, saying it fully supports “the combined Chairman and CEO role at J.P. Morgan under the superb leadership of Jamie Dimon.”
JPMorgan Chase And The Post-London Whale World
At issue is whether Dimon should be able to retain both roles in the wake of the London Whale trading incident, which cost the bank billions of dollars. Some are questioning whether a single person can handle both roles at a bank that’s as large as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), especially after the trading incident raised questions about an apparent lack of oversight leading up to it.
This week unidentified insiders at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) told Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino that they believe Dimon will be able to keep both roles. This would seem to indicate that perhaps T. Rowe Price Associates isn’t alone in its desire to vote against splitting up the CEO and chairman roles.
We’ll find out on Tuesday just what the majority of shareholders think when they vote at the bank’s annual meeting.
Discussion About Dimon And The Combined Roles
There’s been much speculation about what would happen if JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) would force Dimon to give up the chairman role. Some believe he will leave as CEO if he’s pushed out of the chairman role, and that would send the bank’s stock down 10 percent.
Nomura put together a report looking at other banks which also have the chairman and CEO roles combined into one position, and there are certainly arguments for both sides—keeping Dimon in both roles and splitting the roles into two.
