Perhaps Jamie Dimon isn’t as Teflon-coated as we thought.
Shareholders at JPMorgan Chase voted at Tuesday’s annual meeting in Lower Manhattan to defeat a proposal to split the chairman and CEO jobs, which Dimon currently holds.
That’s no surprise, given Dimon’s ever-increasing profile and the strong performance of the bank during the market meltdown of the past few years.
What’s a bit surprising is how many shareholders voted for the proposal. JPMorgan said 33.9% of holders backed the plan, which was made by a bricklayers pension fund and would have required that the board name an independent chairman – that is, someone who isn’t employed by the bank.
Shareholder activists say any vote above 30% sends a message to the board, though it’s hard to imagine Dimon (right) getting stripped of his chairmanship any time soon given the firm’s winning streak. JPMorgan’s board urged shareholders to reject the proposal based on the claim that adopting it would rob the board of flexibility to serve investors.
The irony is that going by the votes, Dimon appears less popular than Lloyd Blankfein, the man who infamously said his firm does “God’s work.” Only 19% of Goldman Sachs investors, after all, backed a proposal earlier this month that would have split the chairman and CEO jobs there.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s a downside after all to being the most dangerous man in America.