Even the best are sometimes forgetful, but JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon can perhaps be forgiven for losing track of how far his empire stretches. It is equally reassuring to know that his famed eagle eye for costs hasn’t lost any of its sharpness.
After all, back when he was Sandy Weill’s protégé at Commercial Credit in the mid 1980s, he was the one cracking the whip on craziness like the paper storage unit that didn’t have any paper and the $20,000 bill for watering executive floor plants that didn’t exist.
Chatting at the bank’s recent investor day, Dimon was rattling through just how great the possibilities were of organic growth in all his firm’s businesses. In consumer banking, for example, JPMorgan was now in 48 states…
Errr, not so fast. A quick check with his colleagues in the front row: “Are we in Hawaii now with First Republic? They have an ATM in Hawaii. They have a high net-worth consumer office?
“OK, now we’re in 49 states.”
And then, quick as a flash, before anyone in the audience could be tempted: “But anyone from JPMorgan who wants to go to Hawaii needs my personal permission to go visit that branch.