“Better Markets’ CEO Dennis Kelleher [is] the man Wall Street loves to hate,” according to Ben White at Politico’s Morning Money. The Irony, however, will likely be that Wall Street five years from now will love, not hate, financial reform, the mission of Dennis Kelleher and Better Markets. Sooner or later it’ll be accepted as a necessity and a reality and then Wall Street will figure out how to profit from the new financial landscape, as they have throughout history.
Ben has, as usual, all the angles on JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee today, including the media activities of Better Market’s CEO Dennis Kelleher: “TV WATCH – Kelleher is on C-Span’s Washington Journal this morning from 7:45 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and later on MSNBC at 4pm and Current TV’s “Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer” at 8:00 p.m.”
Morning Money also has a few of Dennis’ top questions for Dimon:
“1. How could it take you more than a month, until May 10, to learn what was going on inside your own bank when the Wall Street Journal on April 6 and Bloomberg on April 10 reported on it in detail, including the office location in London, the name of the traders, the type of derivatives trade, etc.?”
“2. 850 million JPM shares were traded between April 13th (when you dismissed the public reports about the massive derivatives trades by your London office that were losing billions of dollars as nothing but a tempest in teapot) and May 10 when you finally disclosed those reports were true. Given that your stock has lost between $20-$30 billion in market losses since your disclosure on May 10th, didnt you owe it to your shareholders to do more to find out what was happening at your own bank before opening your mouth on April 13th?”
“3. You defeated 2 personal and controversial shareholder resolutions at your annual meeting on May 15th. One was review of your pay and one was to take away the Chairman of the Board position from you. But, almost all those votes were submitted before anyone knew about this loss. You didnt tell anyone about the loss on May 10, which was only 2 business days before the meeting. Given that your shareholders suffered market cap losses of more than $20+ billion dollars, dont you think those votes would have been different if you had told the truth on April 13th? Shouldnt the shareholders get to revote those resolutions now that they know about the losses?”
Go here for more questions.
