Jamie Dimon gets $56 million after old incentive snowballs

Bloomberg News

Jamie Dimon just received almost $56 million of JPMorgan Chase’s stock, before taxes, from an incentive program the bank valued at less than half that much just three years ago.

The CEO collected 398,708 shares last week from a performance award dating to January 2019, according to a regulatory filing. When the board initially created the package, it comprised 243,697 shares, and the company said it could rise by as much as 50% if JPMorgan hit certain performance targets.

Then the bank did. And the stock rose. And the company added dividends, too.

The result topped the prior year’s incentive award, which was worth about $51 million when it was paid out last March. The latest windfall was helped by the financial industry’s surging business during the pandemic. In both cases, the stock is subject to an additional two-year holding period before Dimon is allowed to sell it, filings show.

“This is highly restricted performance-based compensation granted and reported three years ago,” said Joe Evangelisti, a JPMorgan spokesman.

Dimon is worth $2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The equity-linked award was the biggest part of Dimon’s $31 million compensation package for his work in 2018. The number of shares grew over the years as the bank met targets for return on equity, a measure of profitability, and as it paid out dividends in the form of stock. Meanwhile, the bank’s share price has climbed about 38% since the target was set. Had it gone down, Dimon’s payout could have fallen short of the initial value.

Still, Dimon won’t be keeping a significant portion of the money. More than half of the shares were withheld last week for taxes.