JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s biggest U.S. competitors say their corporate investment offices avoid the use of derivatives that led to the bank’s $2 billion loss and buy fewer bonds exposed to credit risk.
Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. (C) and Wells Fargo & Co. say the offices don’t trade credit-default swaps on indexes linked to the health of companies. JPMorgan is said to have amassed positions in such indexes that were so large they drove price moves in the $10 trillion market.
The loss has prompted shareholders to join regulators in scrutinizing how banks use their investment offices to hedge risks and manage deposits they aren’t using for loans. JPMorgan’s competitors confine corporate-level trading mostly to interest-rate and currency swaps — the most common derivatives — and put a greater percentage of funds into U.S. government- backed securities such as Treasury bonds.
“Traditionally, banks use government bonds, because they’re safer,” said Ray Soifer, a former Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. bank analyst who’s now chairman of Green Valley, Arizona-based Soifer Consulting LLC, which advises banks and investors on strategy and risk management. “JPMorgan is going down the credit spectrum from U.S. Treasuries, because they’re reaching for yield.”
The concentration of assets that carry the risk a borrower might default reflects JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s push over the past five years to seek higher returns at the New York-based bank’s chief investment office. Dimon said at an investment conference yesterday that the bank has more of such assets than competitors, while asserting it isn’t taking undue risks.
“We have more credit exposure than other people, and we think when we put that credit exposure on, it was actually very good,” said Dimon, 56. “We bought some triple-A securities that we think are as good as gold.”
About half of the $381.7 billion in JPMorgan’s chief investment office portfolio is in company bonds, asset-backed securities and mortgage debt not backed by the U.S. government, according to a March 31 filing. That compares with 7.7 percent at the end of 2007. The amount, $188.1 billion, is more than the holdings of such securities by its three biggest competitors combined. It exceeds the total assets of Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks Inc., the 10th-biggest U.S. lender, Bloomberg reported.
