New York - Jamie Dimon, who helped assemble Citigroup and then improved on the experiment with JPMorgan, is responsible for two of the biggest banks the world has ever seen. His life’s work also made him rich.
With JPMorgan shares near a record high, Dimon’s net worth is about $1.1 billion (R13.4bn), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index.
Dimon’s fortune derives from a $485 million stake in New York-based JPMorgan, where he has been the chief executive since the end of 2005, and an investment portfolio seeded by proceeds from Citigroup stock sales.
Dimon’s status is unusual because, with the exception of former mentor Sanford “Sandy” Weill, few bank managers accumulate that much wealth. Most finance industry billionaires start businesses or investment firms, such as hedge-fund tycoon George Soros, who is worth $28.5bn, or Blackstone co-founder Steve Schwarzman, worth $13.4bn.
Transactional side
“The odds are much, much lower for a bank chief executive becoming a billionaire than a guy going to a hedge fund or private equity,” said Roy Smith, a professor at New York University Stern School of Business and a former Goldman Sachs partner who started on Wall Street in 1966.
“The real lucre in this business has always been on the transactional side. The chief executives of Wall Street have to deal with litigation, regulation and the relatively short tenures you have at the top of the pile.”
Dimon, 59, took a different approach. Turning down job offers from firms including Goldman Sachs, he joined Weill at American Express in 1982. The pair later gained control of Commercial Credit, starting a takeover spree that spurred industry consolidation and culminated in the 1998 creation of Citigroup, then the world’s biggest financial services firm.
“I joined Sandy Weill out of business school at American Express, I don’t regret that,” Dimon said in a talk in October. “I’ve had two companies. It’s kind of like, I put the jersey on, and that’s it. I’m not a hired gun.”
Joe Evangelisti, a spokesman for JPMorgan, said Dimon declined to comment about his wealth. Dimon helped execute Weill’s mergers and took increasingly important roles at the target companies, from president of Primerica to chief executive of Smith Barney and president of Citigroup, becoming known for cutting costs and integrating systems.
Forced out by Weill in 1998, Dimon sold 2.3 million Citigroup shares after his exit.
Bloomberg