Jamie Dimon is not the modern-day John Pierpont Morgan. He is not the new king of Wall Street, and heâ??s certainly not President Obamaâ??s BBF (best banker friend).
Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase's Manhattan headquarters. Far from swaggering, he sees rivals scheming to "clean our clocks."?
At least, thatâ??s what he will tell you over lunch at the Park Avenue headquarters of JPMorgan Chase, the descendant of the House of Morgan that came through the global financial crisis bigger, stronger and healthier than its rivals.
But taking a victory lap, or even basking in the adulation he has received while his fellow bank chiefs have been pounded, is the last thing Mr. Dimon claims to want. He knows all too well the dangers of swaggering in the footsteps of former Wall Street kings like Sanford I. Weill, his onetime mentor, who helped build Citigroup into an institution so unwieldy it nearly went bankrupt, or Lloyd C. Blankfein, the Goldman Sachs chief whose crown has been tarnished by accusations of double-dealing under his watch.
Instead, Mr. Dimon worries openly that new financial regulations, which are expected to be passed by the Senate on Thursday and signed by Mr. Obama shortly thereafter, will cost his bank billions and that the jittery economy may suffer another setback. And that rivals, lurking in every corner of the world, are devising new ways to â??clean our clocks.â?
In fact, in a lunchtime interview, his outlook was so cautious, his tone so subdued, that it prompted a senior aide to gently interrupt: â??Jamie, how about mentioning a few of our positives, too?â?
For all the talk of gloom and doom, the postcrisis era looks brighter than Mr. Dimon is willing to acknowledge. In Washington, the financial industry was largely successful in blunting the toughest legislative proposals. On Wall Street, the deluge of losses is slowing and ultra-low interest rates are helping all banks make money.
JPMorgan, in particular, is poised to increase its profit and gain market share in several businesses as many of its competitors continue to struggle to get back on their feet.
The crisis cemented Mr. Dimonâ??s reputation as a financial superstar â?? a bold dealmaker who buys when others are selling, a strict risk manager who resisted the type of exotic businesses that felled others and a charismatic leader who charms lawmakers and credit traders alike. He is now commonly referred to by a single name, like Pelé or Madonna.
â??Right now, there are virtually no giants on Wall Street except maybe Jamie,â? said David M. Rubenstein, a founder of the Carlyle Group and a longtime financial and political hand.
Mr. Dimon earned that distinction by playing as much defense as offense during the housing boom, which insulated JPMorgan more than most when the boom went bust. Then, when the bust became a full-blown financial crisis, Mr. Dimon went hunting for bargains, significantly expanding his position in investment and retail banking while others were shrinking.
Now, those efforts are paying off. Even with a slowdown in trading, analysts are forecasting a profit of 70 cents a share when JPMorgan reports its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, about the same as a year ago.
At age 54, Mr. Dimon has only begun trying to build the kind of global banking empire he initially set out to create with Mr. Weill at Citigroup. While JPMorganâ??s share price fared better than most of the banking sector through the turbulence of the last few years, at around $40.35, it remains roughly where it was when Mr. Dimon took over as chief executive in December 2005.
And analysts point out that while JPMorganâ??s overall operation is in better shape than most, the bank does not enjoy a top position in any single business.
â??They are not Wells Fargo when it comes to retail banking. They are not American Express when it comes to credit cards. They are not BlackRock when it comes to asset management,â? said Michael Mayo of Crédit Agricole Securities. â??And JPMorgan is not Goldman Sachs in emerging markets.â?
Mr. Dimon is trying to make up that lost ground. Over the last three years, he has plowed more than $10 billion into his main businesses. He recently announced plans to build up his corporate bank and make an aggressive push into Brazil, China and a dozen or so other emerging markets that were growing at a faster pace than developed economies. That would put him toe to toe with banks like Citigroup, HSBC and Standard Chartered, which have been in these markets for decades.
â??We are prepared, and we are already good at it,â? says Mr. Dimon, ever-confident but also careful not to overpromise. (He notes the plan will unfold over several years.)
It is an approach right out of the Dimon playbook, mixing competitive paranoia with hardball deal-making and careful management of investor expectations. He made a name for himself as Mr. Weillâ??s young operations whiz, helping assemble Citigroup in the late 1990s through a series of flashy mergers. After arriving at Bank One in 2000, he spent the next few years fixing the ailing regional lender. Then, after Bank Oneâ??s merger with JPMorgan in 2004, he orchestrated a similar turnaround.
He spent three years stitching together the banksâ?? disparate computer systems and getting a handle on the financial risks lurking on its balance sheet. Every step of the way, he told investors that he was focused not on lifting quarterly profits but on building a strong company for the long haul. Mr. Dimon has refined that formula in recent years, seizing more than a few opportunities to reposition his bank while his rivals were in deep distress.
Andrew Martin contributed reporting.
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