Today’s quiz: who said this? “Client selection is one of the most important things we do. If one bank builds a book of business with clients of high character and another bank builds its business with clients of low character, it’s clear which bank will succeed over time. Therefore, turning down clients, which can sometimes be hard to do, is often the only way to be a responsible bank.”
Of course, it was JPMorgan’s chief executive Jamie Dimon, just five days ago in his annual letter to shareholders.
That was published on the same day our Jamie was also speaking at a New York lunch to market oil behemoth Saudi Aramco’s debut international bond issue.
The Saudis are raising $10 billion and have seen demand for treble that.
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are the lead bookrunners, and the fees will be mouth-watering.
You may recall Dimon and a host of other leading bankers boycotted Riyadh’s so-called Davos in the Desert over the horrendous murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.
But by the time Davos proper came around in January, they were flocking to Aramco’s glitzy bash and sitting on panels with Saudi ministers.
Billionaire Dimon has sparred with Donald Trump and flirted with a run for the White House; his shareholder letter certainly reads like a mini-manifesto. It calls on CEOs to “set aside our narrow self-interest” and “aggressively work to improve society”.
So how about a principled stand from one of the world’s biggest banks to refuse to have anything to do with a regime which has earned the opprobrium of the world in recent months?
Don’t be so silly: business is business. But at the very least he should stop lecturing us all.
