By Emily Glazer 

At the 8 a.m. investment-banking meeting at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s Park Avenue headquarters Friday, the seat to the left of Chief Executive James Dimon was kept empty in honor of the man who first organized the weekly gathering, James B. Lee Jr.

The unexpected death last week of Mr. Lee, known as Jimmy, at 62 years old leaves a void at the top of J.P. Morgan. The bank's vice chairman and leading deal maker, Mr. Lee was J.P. Morgan's point man with corporate chieftains, private-equity bosses and other financial titans who generated billions in revenue for the firm. He also teamed with Mr. Dimon in one of Wall Street's most successful partnerships, which gave Mr. Lee a platform for the megadeals that became his trademark.

In an interview, Mr. Dimon called Mr. Lee "irreplaceable" and said the nation's largest bank by assets would parse out his responsibilities among a team of executives. On Wednesday, soon after learning Mr. Lee died of a heart attack after exercising, Mr. Dimon began canceling meetings to instead reach out to clients and bank employees, he said.

Mr. Dimon said if Mr. Lee could advise him after his death, he would have told Mr. Dimon "to tell clients what they mean to me."

Mr. Lee's death also deprives Mr. Dimon of one of his primary advisers. Though many insiders predicted the two brash bankers would clash when they first teamed up a decade ago, co-workers said they formed an alliance that will be difficult to replicate.

"They came from different vantage points" but still called one another pal or buddy, said Jennifer Nason, global chairman of the technology, media and telecom sector at the bank. She and others said the two men complemented each other, with Mr. Dimon as the sometimes-sharp-elbowed operator and Mr. Lee as more of a peacemaker and cheerleader for the bank.

Mr. Lee could "take Jamie's temperature down a bit" and calm his at-times impatient boss, she said. On the other hand, "Jamie gave Jimmy a sense of higher purpose, more worldly, a bigger stage."

During the financial crisis, Mr. Dimon said he and Mr. Lee labored "side by side, no disagreements" through countless late nights and difficult decisions, including the purchase of Bear Stearns Cos.

Early this spring, after the General Electric Co. board decided to move ahead with the sale of the bulk of GE Capital's roughly $500 billion in assets, the conglomerate's CEO, Jeff Immelt, set the complex transaction in motion by summoning Messrs. Lee and Dimon to a conference room on an upper floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, according to people familiar with the meeting. It wasn't the first deal the two snagged together; after a string of successful pitches, Mr. Lee used to say they batted 1.000.

Messrs. Dimon and Lee were accomplished bankers when they first met around 1994, working as executives at units that would later become parts of Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan, respectively. "He called me up and said, 'I want to get to know ya,' " Mr. Dimon recalled.

The men stayed in touch over the years and were thrown together in 2004, when J.P. Morgan bought Bank One Corp., which Mr. Dimon was then running. Mr. Lee, three years older than Mr. Dimon, wasn't generally considered a potential successor to Mr. Dimon at the top of J.P. Morgan, but the chief executive said he consulted his colleague on everything from acquisitions to personnel.

"He was the guy down the hall. He'd walk in [to my office] all the time, and I'd walk in there all the time," Mr. Dimon said. "He was so involved."

Within the bank, executives say they will miss Mr. Lee's attention to detail: He would choose songs for the background music during client events and organize the seating charts, among other intricacies.

In hopes of being named an underwriter for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s initial public offering, Mr. Lee studied Chinese culture and learned magic, which he had heard Alibaba founder Jack Ma enjoyed, according to Mr. Dimon. J.P. Morgan got a role on the $25 billion deal, the largest IPO in history.

Investment-banking fees, which included the fruits of Mr. Lee's deals but also a variety of other businesses, made up 7%, or $6.5 billion, of the bank's overall revenue in 2014, according to securities filings. But financial-industry executives say the numbers don't capture the outsize role he played as the firm's top rainmaker for all sorts of business.

"Jimmy used to call me more than the bankers who" specialized in private-equity coverage, said Jonathan Nelson, chief executive of Providence Equity Partners, an investment firm with more than $40 billion under management. He added that Mr. Lee found ways for other parts of the bank to help make a deal come together.

Analysts and other industry officials say Mr. Lee's death won't likely have an immediate impact on the investment bank's performance. Mr. Lee's colleagues at the firm say he mentored at least a dozen top executives and helped train hundreds more.

"They have a deep bench. They have a strong franchise and can bring a lot of products and services to the table," said David Hendler, a veteran bank analyst who is a principal at consultant Viola Risk Advisors.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Lee ended J.P. Morgan's weekly executive meeting with a rallying cry for bankers to connect with their clients while the mergers-and-acquisitions boom remained in full force.

The meeting Friday was more somber. "There was a lot of tears, laughter and stories," said Eric Stein, head of North America investment banking, who leads the meeting. He said, in future meetings, the bank will continue to leave Mr. Lee's seat unoccupied.

Ted Mann and Ryan Dezember contributed to this article.

Access Investor Kit for JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Visit http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US46625H1005

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

JP Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM)
Historical Stock Chart
From Feb 2024 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more JP Morgan Chase Charts.
JP Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2023 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more JP Morgan Chase Charts.