Or Was CEO Simon Simply Expressing His Regrets for Opportunity Lost?

[ by Melanie Gretchen  and Howard Haykin ]

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon issued a long-awaited apology to JPM shareholders, as well as world leaders, leading economists and uber-wealthy investors and business executives.  Of course Mr. Dimon was referring to the $6.2 billion loss incurred by his bank's chief investment office, based on the ill-suited investment strategy of CIO's London Whale trader.  The following words were expressed at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"If you're a shareholder of mine, I apologize deeply.  But we had record results and life goes on." -- Jamie Dimon.

Of course, Mr. Dimon tempered the apology by stressing the bank's record earnings and that is what really matters to investors, and we move on.  Indeed, net of that $6.2 billion loss, the bank racked up record annual profits of $21.3 billion in 2012.  Since the trade, which Mr. Dimon called "a terrible mistake," the bank restructured its chief investment office and dismissed traders and executives involved with the bad trade, including the London Whale, Bruno Iksil, himself.
 

[C-I Note:  By the way, we couldn't quite figure out what Mr. Dimon was apologizing for. 

Is it that Jamie felt personally responsible for the loss.  It was Mr. Dimon's authorization, after all, to clear the way for the London Whale to play out his ill-fated investment strategy without any constraints.  Dimon and other senior executives"

• disabled all significant speed bumps for this single unit of the bank,
• by suspending or overriding all risk management and trading cap restrictions.
• defied Wall Street logic by permitting the Whale to add to his losing positions, even though most traders instinctively would have started to sell off in order to cut their losses - something Mr. Dimon would intuitively have done, as well.
• lost view of their objective and conservative biases, as well as any perceived concerns about the risk of major losses, all because the London Whale sported an enviable run of profitable trades - surely, even this "dog" would turn around and bring in a solid profit to the bank.

And for this failed judgment, Mr. Dimon still managed to take home 50% of his anticipated $25 million bonus.  Obviously, Jamie Dimon benefited from a very supportive and well-rewarded Board of Directors.]

further details, go to [Reuters, 1/23/13] and [The Guardian, 7/13/12].