Jamie Dimon is staying on as chairman and CEO at JPMorgan Chase, reports from the company’s shareholder vote on Monday have said.
Shareholders were voting on whether the split up the positions of CEO and chairman , but the proposal was defeated by a large margin. The results were preliminary, however, and still subject to change as voting continues on Monday.
The vote came as many Wall Street CEOs have backed Jamie Dimon. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has long supported Dimon , even suggesting last year that the JPMorgan Chase CEO be named Treasury Secretary.
During an interview on the Charlie Rose Show , Buffett said Dimon would have been a great choice to succeed Timothy Geithner.
“I think he’d be terrific,” Buffet said. “If we did run into problems in markets, I think he’d actually be the best person you could have in the job.”
Buffett also noted that Dimon would have the confidence of world leaders had be been named secretary.
Though the appointment never came to pass, Jamie Dimon did receive a boost of support from Monday’s shareholder vote. The JPMorgan Chase board also campaigned for Jamie Dimon in recent weeks, issuing a seven-page letter to shareholders urging them to vote down the proposal.
“It is the Board’s considered and unanimous view that the current governance structure, with Jamie Dimon serving as both Chairman and CEO, and an independent, strong, and active Presiding Director function that meets the ISS and Glass Lewis ‘standards,’ is working effectively and has served the Company exceptionally well. Our current structure provides the balance good corporate governance seeks to achieve and it would be a mistake to change it now,” board members wrote in their letter.
Reports said that Jamie Dimon would have quit if the vote had split the CEO and chairman positions, which analysts believe could have led to JPMorgan Chase’s stock to fall as much as 10 percent.