Being Jamie Dimon just became less fun

NEW YORK, May 17 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Jamie Dimon can boast a number of superlatives: he runs the largest U.S. bank, JPMorgan (JPM.N), opens new tab, with the biggest profit among its peers. He’s the longest serving chief executive on Wall Street, too. Now he also has a less edifying achievement to add to the collection: worst shareholder pay rebuke in at least a decade.

Over two-thirds of the $360 billion bank’s investors rejected his executive pay package at its annual meeting on Tuesday. Central to the vote was a $34.5 million award for Dimon, served with options worth around $50 million read more at the time of their announcement last July. Mostly, the vote is theater. Dimon doesn’t have to give his windfall back, and the bulk of it doesn’t arrive for years. Shareholders also re-elected the whole board, including Dimon, so it’s not like they want him gone.

Still, the result might be humbling. It’s not just that it’s unusual for JPMorgan, which has passed the “say on pay” test with flying colors every year since 2011, when Proxy Monitor started tallying. It’s also the worst result on Wall Street in living memory. Even Citigroup’s (C.N), opens new tab former boss Vikram Pandit got 45% support for his pay package in 2012, a few months before he was ousted. Of the nearly 3,000 say-on-pay votes counted by Proxy Monitor for Fortune 250 companies, only 15 have scored worse than JPMorgan just did.

All may be forgiven at JPMorgan’s investor day on May 23, if Dimon says he’s sticking by his previously announced target of a 17% return on tangible equity over the next couple of years. He might also restore confidence in JPMorgan’s capital spending plans, which, among other things, have contributed to a 25% share-price decline over the past year read more , more than peers including Morgan Stanley (MS.N), opens new tab and Bank of America (BAC.N), opens new tab.

Still, Dimon’s exceptionalism is dented by the annual meeting fail. Dimon has freely used his pulpit as the leader of America’s biggest bank, penning lengthy shareholder missives that call for more sanctions on Russia, tighter monetary conditions, better industrial policy and more social responsibility among corporate chieftains, among other things. The opinions might keep coming, but his platform, like JPMorgan itself, is a bit smaller than it was.

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(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

CONTEXT NEWS

- Over two-thirds of JPMorgan investors voted to reject the U.S. bank’s executive pay at its annual meeting on May 17. The vote is non-binding, but the 31% support was the lowest JPMorgan has received since 2011, according to Proxy Monitor.