JPMorgan Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee unexpectedly died on Wednesday, the company said. He was 62.
“It is with deep sorrow and a heavy heart that I inform you that our beloved friend and colleague, Jimmy Lee, unexpectedly passed away this morning,” JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement. “Jimmy was a great friend, leader and mentor to me and so many others.”
James B. Lee Jr. led the company’s investment banking arm, and was known for his work on the syndicated loan market among other things.
He oversaw major mergers and acquisitions deals including the sale of General Electric assets, the General Motors and Alibaba IPOs (the two largest U.S. IPOs ever), the United-Continental merger and the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger, according to a company spokesman.(Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com.)
“As Vice Chairman of our company and former head of our Investment Bank, Jimmy made an indelible and invaluable contribution to our company, our people, our clients and our industry over his nearly 40 years of dedicated and selfless service. Jimmy was a master of his craft, but he was so much more—he was an incomparable force of nature,” Dimon said in his statement.
Lee told CNBC in 2010 that he felt lucky for having his job.
“I love coming to work every day. I’m lucky in the sense that I get to work on, and many times run, our biggest transactions. I like the content of what I do and who I do it with,” he said at the time.
Lee was exercising at his home in Connecticut when he felt short of breath, CNBC learned.
He is survived by his wife Beth, and three children—Lexi, Jamie and Izzy—according to Dimon’s statement.
“I’ve got a great wife, I got three great kids. I love being with them. To me the family unit is an important sacred place and I enjoy that the most,” he told CNBC in 2010.
Hedge fund titan Dan Loeb shared a few thoughts on Lee’s passing:
Jimmy loved Wall Street more than anyone I’ve ever known. He wasn’t driven by money or deals but by his passion for people. There was no more loyal friend to be had on Wall Street, nor anyone whose wise counsel I valued more.
For example, when I told Jimmy I planned to send a Japanese CEO a letter announcing we were becoming active in its stock, he advised me to deliver it in person, which I did. When that act earned us praise in Japan for showing special sensitivity to the country’s cultural customs, I repaid him by making him a tee shirt that said, “I advised Dan Loeb on his investment in Sony and all I got was this lousy tee shirt.” Later, after Third Point became the first shareholder to meet with Fanuc in 40 years, Jimmy purchased a linen jacket in the company’s distinctive corporate color—bright yellow—for me.
My last correspondence with Jimmy was a note from him titled “Bragging,” where he told me about his son’s admission into a highly competitive securities analysis program at Columbia Business School. He signed off by telling me that despite his long and successful career, his “greatest accomplishment” was his children. With Jimmy’s passing, our community lost a little bit of its humanity and I lost the closest thing I’ve had to a big brother. My thoughts and prayers are with his family, who we discussed frequently, and who he was devoted to and loved so much.
—CNBC’s Kayla Tausche and Scott Wapner contributed to this report, as did Reuters.
I wonder what he found out that he wasn’t supposed to know about. It would appear that exercising in your home can be detrimental to your health.
He was vice chairman, so he probably knew it all. He may have had a bout of conscience troubling him that he had to be killed for, but I doubt it. This may be an actual, “natural causes” thing, but there’s really no telling at this point.
His “loss of breath” may also have had something to do with a plastic bag being duct taped over his head. It’s kind of strange these days that someone with so much money would die at 62. (yes, rich people live longer, because they have access to doctors that aren’t trying to kill them)
“Jimmy loved Wall Street more than anyone I’ve ever known. He wasn’t driven by money or deals but by his passion for people.”
I call bullshit on the quoted statement. I also say that a ‘moneychanger is a moneychanger’. Yes, there are ‘individuals’ within most organizations, however…
the expression of individuality is usually limited to trivial matters.
After reading his long list of “achievements” in the banking industry, I seriously doubt he grew a conscience or discovered anything unsavory that he didn’t actively have a hand in orchestrating to begin with. Not buying anything choir boy about Jimmy Lee.
i wonder how much hes worth to ole jp now that hes dead
or are all these snakes going underground?
That’s what I was thinking, mel. He’s so dirty he would probably get cleaner than he is/was by burrowing in mud on a fertilizer farm.
Amazing how Jaime Dimon is still breathing. Guess they need him and still have use for him as a figurehead.
Anyways, another one bites the dust.