As reported yesterday, here it is officially:
- JPMORGAN SAYS INA DREW TO RETIRE; MATT ZAMES NAMED NEW CIO
- JPMORGAN SAYS DANIEL TO STAY CEO OF EUROPE/MIDEAST/AFRICA
- JPMORGAN SAYS CAVANAGH TO LEAD TEAM OVERSEEING RESPONSE TO LOSS
- JPMORGAN CHASE SAYS ZAMES NAMED NEW CIO
Good bye Ina: we are sure that you will voluntarily claw back your $15 million bonus from 2011 one day ahead of the JPM shareholder meeting.
Now... Matt Zames... Matt Zames... where have we heard that name before... OH YES: he just happens to be the Chairman of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, aka the TBAC, aka the Superommittee that Really Runs America [9]. The Matt Zames who [10]... "previously worked at hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management LP, may have benefited as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and JPMorgan’s takeover of Bear Stearns Cos. left companies and hedge funds with fewer trading partners in the private derivatives markets." In other words, the US Treasury is telegraphing it is now firmly behind JPM.
[11]
Jamie Dimon just pulled out the trump card: we survive or the Treasury gets it.
And some more on Matt Zames [12]:
Matt Zames is one of the contenders to take over from Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan. Why? Because he makes money for the bank. That's why. Or rather, the traders who work under him on the bank's OTC fixed income derivatives trading desk which has made money when the rest of the bank was going close to the wall. If your desk is the only one making serious money, you get to call a lot of the shots, and Zames, an ex-LTCM employee was promoted rapidly in the last 5 years to the executive committee.
Bully for him, but with power comes responsibility and Zames may come under a lot of scrutiny because of a court filing from the trustee charged with recovering money for Mr Madoff’s victims.
John Hogan, a senior risk officer at JPMorgan’s investment bank and a member of the company’s executive committee, voiced concerns about Mr Madoff’s firm to colleagues in 2007, according to a new version of the 114-page complaint. The allegation is part of a $6.4bn lawsuit filed against the bank by the trustee, Irving Picard. Mr Hogan is said to have learnt of Mr Madoff’s Ponzi scheme Zames.
“For whatever it’s worth, I am sitting at lunch with Matt Zames who just told me that there is a well-known cloud over the head of Madoff and that his returns are speculated to be part of a Ponzi scheme,” Mr Hogan allegedly said on June 15 2007, nearly 18 months before Mr Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was revealed.
Of course Zames' concerns went no further. How much he really knew, how much he disclosed and how much he acted on his suspicions to his own benefit may have a significant bearing on his career.
As for those who are in the Mons Venus vicinity tomorrow, and are bored during the day, this one's for you:
[13]