JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon on Monday sold $32.8 million in the bank’s stock, bringing the total proceeds from shaving off a portion of his ownership stake to nearly $183 million this year.
In February, he off-loaded more than 800,000 shares worth $150 million, marking the first time he’s sold JPMorgan stock since becoming CEO 19 years ago.
Dimon is known to be a strong believer in eating your own cooking and holding on to equity. But the company said last year that he and his family planned to sell 1 million shares of JPMorgan for financial diversification and tax planning purposes.
As of last year, Dimon held 8.6 million shares of JPMorgan stock and stock appreciation rights relating to 1.5 million shares. His compensation in 2023 was valued at $36 million, with $29.5 million in the form of stock awards. The board’s compensation committee introduced a policy in 2022 that caps Dimon’s annual cash bonus at 25% of his annual comp. In 2023, the board gave Dimon a bonus of $5 million, which the company says is well under the $10 million median of total cash amounts for CEOs at the bank’s peers. Until this year, he had never sold stock in JPMorgan. The share price was $182.89 today, up 6.3% year to date.
Another member of Dimon’s inner circle at JPMorgan, global chief information officer Lori Beer, also sold stock recently. In March, Beer sold 3,920 shares worth $765,811 after previously selling on the same day as Dimon’s first sale. On Feb. 22, Beer sold off 3,920 shares at a slightly lower stock price for $716,340.
February saw a parade of high-profile executives unload stock, including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Leon Black, cofounder and former CEO of Apollo Global Management.
In an earnings announcement last week, JPMorgan reported first-quarter profits of $13.4 billion, or $4.44 per share, on revenues of $42.5 billion. That included a $725 million increase in the special assessment that came from the FDIC’s estimate of expected losses from last year’s closures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
“We’re earning a lot of money,” said Dimon during the earnings call in response to a question. “Our capital cup runneth over, and that’s why we increased the dividend.”