The Monroe Street Journal

Issue date: 11/12/01 Section: Corporate

Media Credit: MSJ

In sports, when you think of dynamic duos, names that come to mind are Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. In business, you think of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and before 1998, Sandy Weill and Jamie Dimon. In the 1990s, Weill and Dimon were the Batman and Robin of the financial service industry. Their relationship began when Dimon, as a teen, interned at brokerage house Shearson, the company where Weill was chairman. Dimon remained close to Weill throughout the years via family connections. Soon after Dimon graduated from Harvard Business School in 1982, Weill convinced him to turn down offers from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to join him as an assistant at American Express. Though Weill could not offer the same amount of money as the investment banks, Weill promised Dimon that he would have "fun." In 1985, mentor and protégé left American Express and took over Commercial Credit. The two build Commercial Credit and formed Travelers. When Travelers and Citicorp merged in 1998, Dimon became President of Citigroup and Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Salomon Smith Barney. However, after a month on the job, Weill and Dimon had a highly publicized fallout. CEO and mentor Weill fired Dimon in November 1998. In March 2000, Dimon became the CEO of financially distressed Bank One, and in doing so became a direct competitor to his former mentor. Given this rich history, it was no surprise that when Jamie Dimon came to campus last Wednesday, much of his talk centered on his relationship to Weill, now the CEO of Citgroup.

Dimon told students that he has reconciled with Weill and that the two were again friends. He called Weill an individual who could execute and reward shareholders. He reminisced about the times at Travelers when he would sit in a room with Weill and other executives and dream about acquiring every company under the sun. Of course, Citicorp was always at the top of the short list.

After talking about his history, Dimon turned to the present. Dimon is again trying to build a financial empire, but this time alone. He is working hard to fix the internal issues of Bank One. When Dimon joined Bank One in March 2000, the company was in great financial distress. Dimon got to work quickly, slashing expenses, reorganizing management and infrastructure, recruiting talent from his former employer, and writing off bad loans by the billions. Dimon still has his work cut out for him, though much improvement has been made. In June, the company reported more than $708M in quarter profit, compared to more than $1B in losses a year ago.

When students asked him about future acquisitions, Dimon said the company would first have to be running smoothly. When and if the time is right, Dimon may try to strengthen the investment banking business, an area that Dimon is all too familiar with.

The future is very bright for Bank One. The Firm looks to first become the leading commercial bank in the U.S., and eventually the world. He did it once before. He plans to do it again.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools