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.
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