Heads begin to roll at JPMorgan after losing £1.25bn in 'Voldemort' banker fiasco with two London execs shown the door
Two London-based executives were forced out of crisis-hit JPMorgan Chase as heads begin to roll in the wake of the £1.25billion trading loss fiasco.
Achilles Macris, who ran the London desk that made the botched trades, was expected to depart along with one of his senior lieutenants, Javier Martin-Artajo.
They followed Ina Drew, JPMorgan's chief investment officer and one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, out of the door as shareholders demanded blood for the debacle.
Two British-based traders are expected to leave America's JPMorgan bank after a spectacular trading loss
Other departures in London are likely, with 'Voldemort’ Bruno Michel Iksil, the highly paid banker also nicknamed 'London Whale’ because of the big positions he took in the credit markets and the man said to be directly responsible for the trades, almost certain to be on the hit list.
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Ms Drew, 55, a close associate of bank President Jamie Dimon, is the biggest scalp as head of the risk management division responsible for the enormous losses revealed last Thursday.
Gone: Ina Drew, 54, who was paid £9.3m last year, has been forced out as head of JP Morgan's Chief Investment Office
She was paid £9.3million last year, making her one of the highest-paid executives at JPMorgan.
According to the Wall Street Journal, French-born Mr Iksil is likely to leave but it was not clear when that would happen.
All three London-based bank executives were reportedly stripped of trading responsibilities after the staggering scale of the losses was revealed.
The axe fell as Mr Dimon struggled to contain the damage from the scandal that shaved almost 10 per cent off the bank’s stock price on Friday.
He initially sought to shrug off the losses made over just six weeks as a 'tempest in a teapot.’
But appearing on American TV’s 'Meet the Press’ on Sunday, he was much more contrite, admitting: 'We made a terrible, egregious mistake that there is almost no excuse for.
'Hedging should make your bank less risky. In this particular case, we made a terrible mistake,' he added.
The losses came from trades in credit default swaps – the same kind of market bet that sent stocks tumbling in 2008 – in a bid to offset risk from the European financial meltdown.
But Mr Dimon insisted that despite the losses, America's biggest bank was still 'very strong,' and was still expected to make a £2.5billion profit this quarter.
The company's stock plunged almost 7 per cent in after-hours trading after the loss was announced (file picture)
Mistake: JP Morgan Chase President and CEO Jamie Dimon has admitted he was wrong when he dismissed concerns last month of the bank's trading
Blinded: In an interview with NBC, Dimon said during last month's warnings of large losses in financial derivatives trading, he didn't know its scale
Ms Drew, a mother-of-two married to a New Jersey dentist, is said to have repeatedly offered to step down since the trading blunder was revealed. She had risen through the ranks in a 30-year career.
In the end, the bank boss is thought to have bowed to the inevitable on the eve of today's annual shareholder’s meeting where he is certain to face tough questions about how the trades were allowed to happen.
JPMorgan's disclosure has led lawmakers and critics of the banking industry to call for tougher regulation of Wall Street. British regulators have launched their own probe into the losses.
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