JPMorgan Shareholders Approve Pay Packages After $2B Trading Loss - East Idaho News
Business & Money

JPMorgan Shareholders Approve Pay Packages After $2B Trading Loss

  Published at  | Updated at

Getty 051412 JPMorganBuildingFront?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1337102072139Peter Foley/Bloomberg via Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Despite the bank’s $2 billion trading loss, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon still has the support of the company’s stockholders. At the company’s annual meeting Tuesday, shareholders voted to approve his multi-million pay package.

Shareholders voted 91.5 percent in the “say on pay” vote for JP Morgan’s compensation for its executives. They voted 41 percent in favor of an independent chairman, or splitting the role of chairman of the board and chief executive officer, both held by Dimon presently.

The company awarded Dimon, 56, $23 million last year, one of the few CEOs of U.S. banks who did not take a pay cut.

Dimon repeated his comments of contrition, revealing no new details about the massive loss and saying the bank agrees “with the intent of the Volcker Rule,” the pending regulation limiting proprietary trading.

“We are not against new regulations,” Dimon said.

Dimon said that he has discussed his opinions about financial regulation in previous letters from the chairman. He said the bank has supported 70 to 80 percent of the Dodd-Frank Act and, “I never denied we need good regulation.”

“We believe in good, simple and strong regulation,” Dimon said in response to one shareholder who asked if the company was resisting new legislation, adding and it is “not a matter of more or less” regulation.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Justice Department has opened an inquiry into the $2 billion trading loss.

One shareholder asked Dimon why the company would not initiate further principal reduction for underwater homeowners if the loss was not significant to the company’s bottom line. But officials did not respond.

“You purchased bad loans at a discount…Pass that discount onto clients,” she said. “We’re talking about real people not just dollar signs and investors – real investors on the streets.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION