Jamie Dimon's Extraordinary Shareholder Letter

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has channeled Warren Buffett in his most recent letter to shareholders.  As readers of this blog know, Warren Buffett's letters are on my required reading list, and I have always recommended them to friends, colleagues and students.

Based on his long track record of success in financial services, which I began following during his tenure at Bank One, Jamie Dimon is required listening.  As CEO of one of our nation's Big 4 banks, he was in the eye of the hurricane during the financial crisis, has been pummeled during the political piling on post-crisis, and has now almost completed steering JPMorgan Chase into calmer, post-crisis waters.  There's a lot to learn about his view of finance and the role of JPMorgan Chase in this letter, but there are some real questions that remain for investors, as there should be if there is real content in the piece.

The CEO's Principles for Running A Business

• Especially for a cyclical, highly regulated business which is periodically subject to massive, systemic crises, it's essential to build the company into an "endgame winner." Through the work of his team and those of his predecessors over 30 years, he believes JPMC is in that elite group.
• Compare yourself against your best competitor is each of your businesses, and a convenient chart shows how that comparison looks.  
• A good company doesn't use cycles as an excuse. He is committed to earning competitive margins over the full cycle, whatever its characteristics, while still investing in the businesses and without taking extraordinary risks.  
• A good company, while always investing in its businesses, is always eliminating superfluous waste.  This has been a consistent theme going back to CC and to Bank One. It is also more nuanced and sensible than the somewhat comical and ultimately misguided "reusing paper clips" memos coming out of Bear Stearns.
• Some expenses thought by others to be excessive are in fact essential to achieving the endgame goals: it is something I have lived through myself as a CFO, and I really like seeing this laid out in specifics, i.e. the Retail National Sales Conference for JPM's top 5% producers. CEO Dimon has been to every one going back to Columbus, OH and Bank One.  You can tell I especially like this one, because what matters for a successful company is ultimately what employees think, which informs how they behave. 

As Regulators Sandpaper Away at Big Banks, Who Needs Them?

• Economies of brand name, scale, operation, and technology are important in a global financial services business.  Taking them away, by separating companies, will not be efficient for shareholders and it will leave customers looking for a competitor which can supply exactly what JPMorgan Chase has put together. 
• The CEO uses the example of Commercial Banking which is now 35% of the U.S. Investment Banking business. Out of 20,000 Corporate and Middle Market Banking clients, JPM supplies global banking services--cash management, treasury, currency trading, hedging, and mergers and acquisitions--to some 2,500 of these companies.  With normalized future growth and natural consolidation of customers, these opportunities will grow and become more valuable. 
• The Private Bank, because of the asset base and diverse financial interests will always benefit customers and attract prospects through scale. Right now, through the expanded system there are $190 billion in deposits in the Private Bank system alone. Globally, 2,300 families had assets of $1 billion or more, and as a group they represent over $7 trillion in assets. Having a system that routinely moves $6 trillion in daily funds worldwide gives Morgan bankers credibility with customers.
• In a liquidity or other banking crisis in the future, banks need to keep lending, and especially the Big 4 and beyond. Statistics in the letter talk about how much credit was rolled over to small and medium sized businesses, large customers, state and local governments and to hospitals and nonprofits. As the CEO rightly points out, non-bank entities would not be in this position in the next crisis, the character of which he alludes to in a few, unrelated paragraphs.

What About the Share Price Lagging Peers

• The CEO won't be driven by goosing earnings or short-term performance by pulling easy levers. (see the principles in how to run a business)
• JPM's price-earnings ratio is lower than peers, he says, due to large levels of legal and regulatory settlements, and to uncertainty about future settlements.  This may be true, but it's a bit hard to understand given some of the issues surrounding Bank of America, for example. 
• Stay focused on what you can control.

What Happens in the Next Crisis for Liquidity?

• More high quality capital is on the books than at any time in its history.
• Compensation levels would be adjusted immediately.
• Dividends would be cut or suspended, and share buybacks halted.
• In other words, the customers and businesses come first: a good recipe.

I'm not doing a full summary of the letter, but these are some of my highlights. What about a question or concern?  It goes back to the London Whale report. 

In the letter the CEO talks about learning a lot, and I am sure he is right. He also talks about many of the bad derivative products having gone away.  The culture described in that report seems totally at odds with what would seem to be espoused by this CEO.  How did it get that way?  Are all the bad actors gone?  There is a reference to "fortress controls."  I think that's just a marketing slogan.  They are neither feasible nor necessary: mistakes will happen, bad trades will be made, and earnings will take a hit, but all of these should be ring-fenced, bounded and fixed quickly.  That is not the company described in the London Whale report.

The CEO does make a reference to consistently espousing the principles in the letter during the year and to audiences in different settings. This could be a big deal.  The question is: who's in the audience? The same folks as before, with religion now?  

I go back to Bill Belichick's adage, "Just Do Your Job!"  CEO Dimon needs to be surrounded by leaders who knowledgeably sit over their global operations moving $6 trillion daily and who can truthfully and with confidence say, "No storms on the horizon" if the CEO asks.  A related question is, of course, who can step into Jamie Dimon's shoes if illness or factors require a successor to step in? 

Having a behemoth of a company so dependent on the acumen, drive and leadership of one person isn't the most risk optimal way of looking at the future: just a thought.