JPMorgan’s Dimon Hires His Father for Bear Stearns Brokerage

JPMorgan’s Dimon Hires His Father for Bear Stearns Brokerage


Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- If Jamie Dimon ever needs fatherly advice, he can turn to his newest employee: Dad.

Theodore “Ted” Dimon, the 78-year-old father of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief executive officer, quit Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit yesterday to join his son’s firm, according to a person familiar with the matter. JPMorgan spokesman Darin Oduyoye confirmed the decision and said the unit had added more than 70 brokers this year.

The elder Dimon and his five-member broker team will join Bear Stearns Private Client Services, a unit acquired by his son in the March 2008 takeover of the failed investment bank. He will report to Michael Lee, head of the unit’s New York office.

Jamie Dimon said Oct. 27 that his New York-based bank plans to have as many as 1,000 of the “top, top, top” brokers. The unit had 324 brokers at the end of 2008, company documents show.

“I love the retail broker business because my dad is a broker and my grandfather was a broker and it was the first job I ever had,” Jamie Dimon, 53, said at a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association meeting Oct. 27. “So if you are really, really good, call JPMorgan. We’d be happy to hire you.”

The elder Dimon spent more than three decades as a broker for companies once run by Sanford “Sandy” Weill before moving to Merrill Lynch in August 2006, according to a report from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. He stayed at Citigroup for eight years after his son was fired by Weill in 1998.

Jamie Meets ‘Sandy’

Ted Dimon and Weill became friends in 1974 after Weill brokered a deal forming Shearson Hayden Stone, the fifth-largest brokerage at the time, according to Monica Langley’s book, “Tearing Down the Walls.” Ted Dimon later introduced Jamie to Weill. The two formed a partnership and built Citigroup Inc.

Weill fired Jamie Dimon after clashing with his protégé. Jamie Dimon went on to become CEO of Chicago-based Bank One Corp. and brokered its sale to JPMorgan in 2004. He took over as JPMorgan’s CEO at the end of 2005.

Jamie Dimon’s father joins a unit that has earned $307 million in revenue for the year through Sept. 30, a company report shows. Barry Sommers runs the unit, which remains a separate division from JPMorgan’s private bank, whose clients are typically worth more than $25 million.

Bear Stearns gave JPMorgan entrée into retail brokerage, a business dominated by rivals Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, the world’s largest retail brokerage.

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup’s Smith Barney unit agreed in January to form a joint venture, creating a retail brokerage with more than 18,000 brokers and $1.5 trillion in assets. The firm said Oct. 22 it plans to add 150 advisers in the U.S. and 200 overseas to serve “ultra-high-net-worth” clients in the next three to five years. The brokerage has about 500 advisers who work with clients with a minimum net worth of $20 million.

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