One of the rumored front-runners to eventually succeed JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon said Monday that uncertainty over who will win the White House could be dampening enthusiasm for mega-bucks deals.
“Everybody is very interested in talking about the election,” Troy Rohrbaugh, the 54-year-old co-CEO of the Wall Street giant’s investment bank arm, told Reuters.
“While the equity capital markets are opening up and there are more advisory assignments, the overall market is still not that incredibly robust with lots of IPOs or mergers,” he added in the joint interview with fellow investment bank head Jennifer Piepszak, also 54.
Piepszak, another reported front-runner to take over the reins from the 68-year-old Dimon, added that the New York-based firm faced a stiff contest to win business from its rivals amid concerns of a possible economic slowdown.
“The competitive landscape is remarkably intense,” she told Reuters.
Another name that has been bandied about in the succession battle is Mary Erdoes, who heads the bank’s asset and wealth management division.
She was picked to represent JPMorgan at a private lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee in Paris on July 26 alongside other top executives, the Post can reveal.
Dimon, who has indicated he may step down in five years, said in May that the process of picking his successor “is well under way.”
Last week, he stayed away from endorsing either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris, instead saying whoever wins needs to unite the country.
Piepszak’s warning on the challenges her investment bank unit faces comes after a number of top JPMorgan rainmakers departed for some of its bitter rivals in recent months.
Viswas Raghavan took over Citigroup’s banking division in June, while Fernando Rivas joined Wells Fargo as co-CEO of corporate and investment banking.
Carsten Woehrn also left JP Morgan to take up a new gig as Goldman Sachs’ co-head of mergers and acquisitions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Rohrbaugh and Piepszak’s tenure has seen revenue at JPMorgan’s newly merged commercial and investment banking unit rise to a record $35.5 billion in the first half of this year.
Its investment banking revenue grew 46% to $2.5 billion in the second quarter versus a sluggish period a year earlier, sparking optimism of a sustained rebound in the sector.
Last month, JP’s Morgan’s crosstown rival Goldman Sachs posted net earnings for the second quarter of 2024 of $3.04 billion, $8.62 per share, compared with $1.22 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Its investment banking fees rose 21%, helped by a big jump in debt underwriting fees for the bank.
Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo told the Post that he was still optimistic about the prospects for the sector for the rest of this year.
“Companies were saying they were expecting a pre-election slowdown, regardless of the scenarios,” Mayo said. “You still have pent-up demand over a few years, you still have ample liquidity and there’s the X factor of the private equity community that has trillions of dollars of money to put to work.”
“This idea of August in the Hamptons getting cancelled is no more,” he added. “I think that the main course for deal-making is still solid. They might be crying ‘who took away my ice cream?’ – but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
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