JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in a memo to employees that his doctors have now found no evidence of cancer in his body after he concluded treatment for throat cancer during the past few months. Dimon’s openness of discussing his health contrasts with other corporate examples, including the eventually fatal cancer of Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Dimon went public with his cancer diagnosis
In July, Jamie Dimon disclosed to shareholders and employees of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) that he had throat cancer. He revealed that the cancer was caught quickly, and his condition was curable. Moreover, the cancer was confined to the original site and the adjacent lymph nodes on the right side of this neck. He added that there was no evidence of cancer elsewhere in his body.
In an internal memo which was also released in a regulatory filing on Friday, Dimon said: “This week I had the thorough round of tests and scans that are normally done three months following treatment, including a CAT scan and a PET scan. The good news is that the results came back completely clear, showing no evidence of cancer in my body. While the monitoring will continue for several years, the results are extremely positive and my prognosis remains excellent.”
JPMorgan Chase endured difficult few years
Dimon’s illness cast a shadow over the biggest U.S. bank by assets as the bank endured a difficult couple of years beset with legal and regulatory problems. Last year JPMorgan Chase was ordered to pay $920 million in fines for misconduct in the infamous London Whale scandal to government authorities in Washington and London. The bank sustained a loss due to big derivative wagers in its chief investment office in London. The incident also gave JPMorgan a tainted reputation for being a bank with poor risk handling capabilities.
The bank also arrived at a settlement with the President’s RMBS Working Group of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, paying $13 billion for the resolution of all the actual and probable civil claims related to the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities.
Earlier this year, Ponzi-master Bernie Madoff reiterated that senior JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) officials “had direct knowledge” of his fraud, a theft from investors estimated at $17.3 billion. A lawsuit filed in Manhattan in February pointed the finger directly at Dimon and 12 additional current and former JPMorgan directors and employees.
Investors have much more doubt over the succession at JPMorgan, particularly after the departure of a string of high-level executives. Hence, Dimon’s illness was seen as having considerable influence on the bank’s fate.
In August, Bob Benmosche told Bloomberg that he decided to step down as CEO of American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG) earlier than he’d planned after his cancer worsened.
