JPMorgan CEO wins votes on pay, chairmanship

The CEO of JPMorgan Chase won a shareholder endorsement of his pay package Tuesday and kept his title of chairman of the board, five days after disclosing a $2 billion trading loss at the bank.

Most ballots were cast before CEO Jamie Dimon revealed the loss.

The vote on Dimon's pay package from last year — $23 million, according to an Associated Press analysis — was non-binding. It passed with 91 per cent of the vote. A vote to strip Dimon of the chairman's title won only 40 per cent.

Speaking with reporters after the meeting, Dimon said: "The buck always stops with me." Earlier, he told shareholders that the company's mistakes were "self-inflicted."

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.

Rev. Seamus Finn, representing shareholders from the Catholic organization Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, said that investors had heard Dimon apologize 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 recovered slightly on Tuesday.

There was a heavy police presence at the meeting, in an office park east of downtown Tampa.

Dimon got something of a vote of confidence from President Barack Obama, who appeared on ABC's "The View" for an episode to be aired Tuesday. Obama used the appearance to press for tighter regulation of Wall Street.

"JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is," the president said. "Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting."

Obama said the bank was "making bets" in the market for the complex financial instruments known as derivatives. Dimon has said the bank was hedging against financial risk.

A part of the 2010 financial overhaul known as the Volcker rule would restrict banks from some trading for their own profit. Dimon and critics of the financial industry have disagreed over whether the trading in question would violate that rule.

Dimon is likely to repeat his acceptance of responsibility for the bad trade. He said in a TV interview Sunday that he was "dead wrong" when he dismissed concerns about the bank's trading last month.

"We made a terrible, egregious mistake," Dimon told NBC's "Meet the Press." ''There's almost no excuse for it."

On Monday, Ina Drew, the bank's chief investment officer and one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street, left the bank. Drew oversaw the trading group responsible for the $2 billion loss.