Jamie Dimon opens door to a $20bn JP Morgan takeover

Jamie Dimon has kicked the door open to the prospect of JP Morgan completing a major takeover that would shake-up the global banking landscape.

The Wall Street boss raised the idea of the bank spending as much as $20bn (£15bn) as it looks to capitalise on the freed up capital from deregulation reforms.

“I do think there might be, in the next couple years, a chance to put $10bn or $20bn to work buying something,” he said during a banking conference on Wednesday.

“And when we do that, we’ll explain to you why we think it’s a great purchase.”

Dimon said he expects JP Morgan to have $40-$50bn in excess capital above what is required by regulators.

He added JP Morgan was “quite patient with capital” and that it wasn’t “burning a hole in our pocket”.

The influential banker has steered the bank as chief executive since December 31 2005 and became chairman of the board just 12 months later. He succeeded American investment banker William B. Harrison in both cases.

Dimon: Investment banking is ‘gung ho’

Earlier this month, Dimon fought off an investor rebellion that sought to fracture his iron grip on the bank by splitting up the two roles he holds and bringing in an independent chair.

The banking chief did not hint at what acquisition he would be keen to make. However, JP Morgan would be blocked by US law from snapping up another deposit-taking bank since it has already amassed over 10 per cent of the country’s deposits.

JP Morgan was able to bag an exemption of this rule in 2023, when it purchased First Republic in a government-run auction after the lender failed.

Across the US, JP Morgan banks around 86m consumers and 7.4m business clients. In the UK, its digital bank Chase has built up a base of around 2.5m customers.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Dimon said he expects to spend an extra $1bn than forecasts initially pencilled in for the bank, taking annual costs to $106bn “mostly driven by better performance”.

He added that investment banking fees were expected to be up around 10 per cent in the second quarter from a year ago, whilst the trading haul of the first three months of the year is set to continue amid the marker jitters.

“It’s gung ho, folks,” Dimon said.

“M&A is like the best year we’ve had in I’ve forgotten how many years. [Equity markets] is going to be huge this year.”