JPMorgan Chase & Co., cotée sur le NYSE, est une holding financière, née de la fusion entre la Chase Manhattan Bank et J.P. Morgan & Co. en janvier 2001. Wikipédia
CEO Jamie Dimon bets on J.P. Morgan Chase, to the tune of $26 million
Feb 11, 2016 6:13 p.m. ET
Chairman said to buy 500,000 shares to boost confidence in banking industry
By
JUSTIN
BAER
CHRISTINA
REXRODE
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chairman and Chief Executive James Dimon bought 500,000 of his bank’s shares on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said.
The $26 million purchase is designed to stem the tide of negative sentiment overwhelming bank stocks this year. The big-ticket stock purchase from one of the country’s most well-known bankers followed a 20% decline in J.P. Morgan’sJPM, +8.33% share price so far this year and a broader selloff that has hit big banks such as Citigroup Inc. C, +7.32% and Bank of America Corp. BAC, +7.08% particularly hard.
Bank stocks have fallen about twice as much as broader stock-market averages this year as investors fret over slowing economic growth, falling energy prices and the possibility that interest rates will fall, a tough combination for bank profits.
“Jamie Dimon stepped up to the plate,” said Mike Mayo, an analyst with CLSA, who took the purchase as a positive sign for shares. “It’s a big number.” The recent market decline is “either a financial catastrophe, or this is an epic buying opportunity, and Dimon is in position to know what outcome is more likely.”
Including his latest purchase, Dimon will own 6,746,402 shares worth a total of about $357.7 million, based on Thursday’s closing price. J.P. Morgan shares rose 2% in aftermarket trading after sliding 4% during the regular trading session.
In recent days, the slide in bank stocks has become an avalanche. Bank of America Corp. shares tumbled 6.8% Thursday, their biggest one-day loss in nearly three years. Citigroup fell 6.5%. In the first six weeks of this year, the biggest U.S. banks have given up nearly three years of gains.
Citigroup and Bank of America now trade for about half their book value, a level last seen in late 2012.
Meanwhile, Citigroup Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach bought about $500,000 worth of Citigroup shares Tuesday, the New York bank disclosed Thursday in a regulatory filing. Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat and Chairman Michael O’Neill bought about $1 million shares each three weeks ago.
Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., spent $26.6 million to buy shares of his bank Thursday after they tumbled to the lowest price in more than two years. On Friday, the stock surged 8 percent, the most in more than four years.
Dimon, 59, bought 500,000 shares, bringing his total holding to 6.75 million shares, according to a regulatory filing. He made the purchase because he believes the stock is cheap after a worldwide rout in equities, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking. JPMorgan, the largest U.S. lender by assets, had dropped 20 percent this year through the end of regular trading Thursday in New York.
Jamie Dimon
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Other global banks including Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG had all plunged more than 32 percent through Thursday. On Friday, the 24-company KBW Bank Index added 5 percent, led by JPMorgan, which also was the biggest gainer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The shares rose to $57.32 at 12:12 p.m. in New York, the biggest intraday advance since December 2011.
Executives can sometimes shore up confidence in their firms after purchasing shares in the open market. Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat and Chairman Michael O’Neill each bought about $1 million of their bank’s shares on Jan. 22 after they fell to the lowest in more than three years. On Thursday, Citigroup Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach purchased 13,000 shares for about $489,000, according to a filing. Citigroup surged 7.6 percent on Friday, paring its 2016 decline to 27 percent.
Total Pay
A total of 699 officers and directors of U.S. companies purchased their own stock in the past 30 days compared with 828 who sold, the most bullish ratio in more than four years, according to data compiled by the Washington Service and Bloomberg and reported Wednesday. Stocks with the worst losses, such as financial firms, are seeing the biggest increase in demand. Howell D. McCullough III, the CFO of Huntington Bancshares Inc., snapped up 25,000 shares on Feb. 1 after the Ohio lender tumbled 22 percent to start the year.
Dimon’s total compensation for 2015 was $27 million, mostly in stock units linked to the bank’s future performance. That’s a 35 percent raise from a year earlier as profit reached a record $24.4 billion.
AIG est le nom commercial du réseau mondial d’assurance dommages et responsabilité de American International Group, Inc. AIG est l’un des leaders mondiaux de l’assurance et des services financiers. Wikipédia
L'assureur American International Group (AIG), affaibli par une perte plus lourde que prévu au quatrième trimestre, a annoncé jeudi avoir conclu un accord avec l'investisseur activiste Carl Icahn qui va être désormais représenté à son conseil d'administration. AIG a en outre augmenté son programme de rachat d'actifs et annoncé une majoration de son dividende, mais son action ne progressait que modestement dans les échanges d'après-Bourse à Wall Street.
Icahn fait depuis plusieurs mois campagne pour qu'AIG, le numéro un de l'assurance dommages aux Etats-Unis, se scinde en trois sociétés. "Nous pensons toujours que c'est mieux d'être plus petit et plus simple", a-t-il réagi dans un communiqué. AIG a précisé qu'il ouvrirait son conseil d'administration à un représentant du fonds Icahn Capital et au financier John Paulson, à la tête du fonds Paulson & Co.
Au quatrième trimestre, la compagnie d'assurances a accusé une perte opérationnelle de 1,35 milliard de dollars (1,19 milliard d'euros), soit 1,10 dollar par action, sous le coup de souscriptions moins importantes que prévu et d'une baisse de ses retours sur investissements dans le contexte de volatilité des marchés financiers.
Les analystes prévoyaient en moyenne une perte de 93 cents par action, selon le consensus établi par Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. AIG, fondé à Shanghai en 1919 et qui a frôlé la faillite pendant la crise financière de 2007-2009, a annoncé son intention de racheter pour cinq milliards de dollars d'actions supplémentaires et a porté son dividende trimestriel à 32 cents, contre 28 cents auparavant.
L'assureur américain AIG fait la paix avec le milliardaire Carl Icahn
AFP , publié le 11 février 2016 à 22h05
L'assureur américain AIG a signé une paix des braves jeudi avec les influents investisseurs "activistes" Carl Icahn et John Paulson, qui demandaient sa scission en trois sociétés indépendantes, lui assurant la tranquillité au moins jusqu'à l'AG prévue en mai.
Le premier assureur américain va élargir son conseil d'administration à 16 membres contre 14 auparavant, dont un siège sera occupé personnellement par M. Paulson et un autre dévolu à Sam Merksamer, un proche de M. Icahn.
"Les deux nouveaux membres du conseil vont apporter une expertise financière et du monde des affaires. Et nous sommes impatients de profiter de leurs idées au moment où nous enclenchons notre stratégie pour créer une entreprise plus leste, rentable et concentrée" sur son coeur de métier, a souligné le directeur général Peter Hancock, qui sauve pour le moment son poste.
AIG a en outre annoncé un programme de rachat d'actions de 5 milliards de dollars et une hausse de 14% de son dividende trimestriel, autant d'annonces destinées à apaiser MM. Icahn et Paulson.
A Wall Street, le titre gagnait 0,26% à 50,65 dollars dans les échanges de post-séance.
"Nous avons trouvé aujourd'hui un accord avec AIG", a réagi dans un communiqué M. Icahn, qui explique avoir fait le choix de ne pas siéger personnellement au sein du conseil d'administration. Il ajoute espérer travailler avec la direction pour créer de la valeur pour les actionnaires.
Après des mois de pressions, MM. Icahn et Paulson prennent ainsi pied chez l'assureur. Les deux milliardaires critiquent la gestion du directeur général Peter Hancock, à qui ils ont demandé de procéder sans succès à une scission en trois du groupe censée doper le cours de Bourse.
L'une des sociétés se spécialiserait dans l'assurance des prêts immobiliers (assurance invalidité notamment) en forte croissance, une autre dans l'assurance-vie et la dernière dans la couverture des dommages et sinistres.
Ce schéma créerait, selon M. Icahn, des entreprises plus faciles à gérer et aurait surtout l'avantage de lui faire perdre son statut d'institution financière d'importance systémique (SIFI). Ce statut est assorti de contraintes réglementaires spécifiques comme renforcer ses fonds propres. Metlife Inc, rival d'AIG, a par exemple annoncé mi-janvier s'alléger, en se séparant de ses activités de "détail" aux Etats-Unis pour échapper aux exigences draconiennes de la régulation.
- Perte -
Fin janvier, Carl Icahn avait ainsi remis en cause les qualités de dirigeant de M. Hancock après que celui-ci eut présenté un plan stratégique reposant sur des économies, des cessions d'actifs et une distribution de 25 milliards de dollars aux actionnaires.
L'homme d'affaires avait alors demandé des mesures d'économies plus agressives et une réduction importante de la taille de l'entreprise et promettait une guerre des résolutions lors de l'AG.
Malgré l'accord conclu jeudi, Carl Icahn ne semble pas avoir complètement abandonné son idée et en a rajouté une couche: "Nous continuons à penser que plus petit et plus simple est la meilleure stratégie", a-t-il répété.
En attendant, l'année 2015 a été décevante: AIG a enregistré des résultats inférieurs aux attentes et est même passé dans le rouge au quatrième trimestre, période reflétant l'état de santé de l'activité récente.
Le résultat net annuel a chuté de 70,8% à 2,2 milliards de dollars pour un bénéfice par action ajusté, référence en Amérique du nord, de 2,19 dollars contre 2,34 dollars espérés en moyenne par les analystes.
Au quatrième trimestre, la perte de 1,35 milliard de dollars est plus importante que prévu puisque par action ajusté, elle s'élève à 1,10 dollar contre - 91 cents seulement attendus.
Cette contre-performance est due à une hausse des demandes d'indemnisation des assurés et à des pertes sur les portefeuilles des "hedge funds" du groupe.
AIG n'est plus le mastodonte qu'il a été avant la crise financière, avec des activités variées dont certaines hors de son métier. Il a été sauvé de la banqueroute par l'état fédéral qui a dû débourser 185 milliards de dollars. Depuis le groupe a cédé pour 500 milliards de dollars d'actifs, dont sa filiale de location d'avions ILFC, et procédé à des milliers de licenciements.
@ The Fool by Jay Jenkins who has no position in any stocks mentioned
AIG's Showdown With Carl Icahn Just Escalated
When Carl Icahn came knocking, AIG didn't listen. That's a recipe for a fight.
Last week, American International Group(NYSE:AIG) announced a plan to spin off 20% of its mortgage insurance business in an IPO, with plans to sell the remaining 80% over time in the future. The company will also sell its financial advisory business and will reorganize the remaining divisions of the company into nine operating units.
This announcement came after activist investors, led by Carl Icahn, began calling for the breakup of AIG last year. Icahn and others think that a smaller, more focused AIG would be more efficient and command a higher valuation than the conglomerate as it exists today.
AIG's announcement falls well short of Icahn's demands, setting the stage for the battle to only intensify in 2016.
"Too big to succeed" The driver behind the activist interest in AIG and other insurers is the Fed's inclusion of several non-bank insurance companies on the list of so-called systemically important financial institutions, or SiFis.
SiFi institutions face considerable regulatory oversight, including higher capital requirements that protect the companies from a repeat of the financial crisis but also reduce their earnings potential.
While the vast majority of SiFis are banks, a few non-banks made the list thanks to their large size or interconnectedness within the financial system. AIG fits squarely into both of these categorizations.
Icahn has pushed AIG and others to dramatically shrink their size enough to shed the SiFi designation, and thus avoid the higher regulatory and capital burden. Instead of the relatively small changes announced by AIG's management last week, Icahn is pushing for the company to split into thirds, separating its life insurance business, mortgage business, and property and casualty business into three separate companies.
The announcement in January starts the process of selling the mortgage business, but is still far less aggressive than what Icahn believes is necessary. He's said that the company today is "too big to succeed," a play on words from the common "too big to fail" refrain in political and policy discussions following the financial crisis.
Non-bank SiFi's under siegeAIG is not alone facing these pressures. Earlier in the month, MetLife announced it would sell its retail life and annuity business, a transaction that could shrink the parent company by more than 28% in a single transaction. The goal of the sale, not surprisingly, is to end the company's designation as systemically important.
General Electric, another non-bank systemically important financial institution, was the first to take aggressive steps to reduce its financial exposure and work to drop the SiFi label. GE has sold, and is continuing to sell, billions of assets from its formerly powerful GE Capital division, transforming the entire enterprise away from finance and toward a focus on energy and industrial businesses. Many analysts viewed the move by CEO Jeffrey Immelt as a proactive step to reduce risk, but also as a measure to keep activist investors at bay.
For AIG, the shrinking process has been well under way for over five years now. After accepting a $184 billion bailout during the financial crisis, AIG has sold off businesses, simplified its business model, and lowered its risk profile. Since reaching its peak size in late 2007, AIG has shrunk its total assets by over 53%.
Despite that considerable progess, Icahn thinks the company should do even more. In his view, the job won't be done until AIG can rid itself of the regulatory burden of being systemically important.
Where does AIG go from here? CEO Peter Hancock has been consistent in statements to investors since Icahn entered the picture. He and board chairman Douglas Steenland have repeated their willingness to listen to the desires of the company's investors and have left open the option for further sales. Hancock went as far as to say that there "are no sacred cows."
However, Hancock in particular held steadfast that attacking the SiFi designation is the wrong strategic priority for the company to focus on right now. The company estimates that the SiFi designation costs somewhere in the ballpark of $130 million per year in additional costs, however, the company benefits from a $1.3 billion tax benefit by keeping its life insurance and property and causality businesses together under one roof.
Based on Hancock's sentiment, the organizational restructure announced last month, and the company's history over the past five years, it seems plausible that further divestments are in the works, but nothing to approach Icahn's aggressive plan. That puts the ball back in Icahn's court, a place that often leads to proxy fights, changing board seats, and sometimes even new management entirely. What happens next is hard to predict, but with Icahn in the picture, 2016 is shaping up to be an interesting time for AIG and its shareholders.
5 Things Wynn Resorts Limited's Management Wants You to Know
Wynn Palace could open sooner than expected but no one knows how many table games it will have.
Aug 13, 2015 at 9:00AM by Travis Hoium @ The Fool
There's a lot of uncertainty in the gambling enclave of Macau and one of the best ways to find out what's going on there is to hear directly from operators what conditions are like. During a recent conference call with investors, Steve Wynn gave a little insight into what he did -- and didn't -- know about the future of Macau and Wynn Resorts Limited's(NASDAQ:WYNN) operations. Here were the five biggest things I took from the call (each starting with a quote from CEO Steve Wynn).
1. Uncertainty is the norm in Macau"Macau continues to be more of a question than a certainty as we head through 2015 and toward our opening on March 25 of Wynn Palace in 2016."
This was almost the first thing he said to investors and in one sentence it said a lot about where the company is. He doesn't know when Macau will improve or if it will in the near future, but the company is focused on completing Wynn Palace, which will open on March 25 of next year.
That gave investors a definitive date for the opening and the first quarter of 2016 is earlier than previous comments had predicted, in part because Wynn got its full allocation of construction workers.
2. Wynn Palace is a drag on current results"Our construction and our staffing is on schedule. We've made some adjustments in the staffing until we have a clearer picture of the game total that will be allocated to us by the government. But in the meantime, we're finishing this building."
Table games have become a big question mark in Macau because there are six new resorts or expansions opening in the next two years and the government doesn't want to flood the industry with new table games. So, Wynn is managing what it has and not overhiring because it may not get as many games as desired. But the allocation is something for investors to watch as the opening moves closer.
3. Why expenses are higher than usual"We're packing a lot of people in Macau Peninsula operation in anticipation of Macau. So that is one place where our expenses are artificially inflated as we warehouse people that we're planning to take next door."
This was one comment in a long discussion about Wynn's short-term operations in preparation for opening Wynn Palace. The company is keeping more staff than normal because workers are being trained so some can be promoted to open Wynn Palace efficiently.
Additional staff will have a short-term drag on results because of higher operating costs but it should lead to a smoother opening and we should see lower operating costs once both properties are operational.
4. How an opening looks at Wynn Resorts"The hotel will be a campus in February, and if anything interferes with our ability to use March as a campus to practice, then of course I wouldn't hesitate to postpone the opening by a week or two."
Wynn doesn't like to do soft openings or test operations on the public; it tests systems in private with employees who will be working there and opens when the resort is ready. That process will begin in February and if the resort's operations aren't up for it, he would push back the opening.
These might be blunt comments to some investors but Steve Wynn has shown that he's uncompromising when it comes to the operations of his resorts. The added operational costs mentioned above will go into creating a smooth opening for Wynn Palace and a big part of that is the property becoming a campus for workers in February and March.
Long term, this focus on detail is what keeps Wynn atop the gaming industry in every location it's in. For investors, that could mean more than $1 billion in EBITDA from Day 1 at Wynn Palace, which could send the stock soaring as well.
5. Las Vegas is humming along"In Las Vegas, we're enjoying a comfortable business, I think is the right word for it. It's not an aggressive growth by any means, but we are enjoying non-casino revenue that is acceptable. Our slot machine and table games are growing with one exception. ... our baccarat table business has suffered, mainly because of the absence of a number of Asian players."
The interesting trend in Las Vegas is that non-gaming revenue is fairly strong while baccarat play from Asian gamblers, which is actually the biggest game in town by revenue, is getting weaker. This is a spillover from the issues plaguing Macau but it's worth investors understanding.
Long term, I also see this as a sign that Wynn has built properties correctly to attract high room rates and other non-gaming revenue. As young people gamble less, these sources of revenue will become even more important.
Wynn Palace is the key for Wynn Resorts
There was a lot of focus on Wynn Palace on this call and for good reason. The property could double the company's revenue and EBITDA when it opens and it could steal significant market share from competitors. That's why opening on time and at full speed will be important. The short-term costs Wynn is taking to do that should pay off in spades in the long run.
by Hugh Son @ BloombergBusiness
Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., spent $26.6 million to buy shares of his bank Thursday after they tumbled to the lowest price in more than two years. On Friday, the stock surged 8 percent, the most in more than four years.
