Jamie Dimon admits to ‘tough’ going for JPMorgan in China

JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon said on Thursday that parts of its business in China had “fallen off a cliff” in recent years, highlighting the challenges western institutions face in the country’s investment banking sector.

In private comments, confirmed by the Financial Times, to attendees at the bank’s flagship conference in Shanghai, Dimon said that business had “grown” but it had been “tough” and that he remained optimistic on new areas of growth, after a wave of regulatory approvals.

“Some of the investment banking business has fallen off a cliff in the last couple of years, I don’t worry about that . . . that will have its ups and downs,” he said, adding that other businesses including asset management “should hopefully grow over time”. 

“We just keep on investing in whatever country we’re in,” he said.

JPMorgan declined to comment.

The Shanghai conference, with speakers this year including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Citadel investment firm chief Ken Griffin and Joe Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba, has been running for 20 years, but more recently has taken place under the shadow of worsening geopolitical tensions between the US and China.

Under heightened scrutiny from Washington over their operations on the mainland, US and multinational firms have largely avoided the limelight, while international banks have struggled to retain a foothold in China’s vast but largely closed-off financial markets.

Activity, dominated by domestic securities houses such as Citic and China International Capital Corporation, has also declined against a backdrop of weaker economic sentiment. Dealogic data shows domestic initial public offerings have raised Rmb60bn ($8.3bn) in 2024, their lowest total at this stage of the year since 2009 and down 85 per cent year on year.

Dealogic data also shows only one equity offering in China this year in which any US bank has been involved. In April, Goldman Sachs worked on an $80mn follow-on issue for Shenzhen Salubris Pharmaceuticals in Shenzhen.

JPMorgan last year received approvals to take full ownership of an asset management company in Shanghai in which it previously had a minority stake. Other banks have also received new approvals, including BNP Paribas for a fully owned securities brokerage last month.

Dimon, who cited the bank’s increased ownership stakes, said the company had 1,200 banking clients in the mainland, many of them multinationals, and that the bank’s research on the country “travels the world”. 

While international banks have struggled to compete in securities markets domestically, a range of Chinese corporates now have ambitious expansion plans overseas. A list of guests at the conference included firms such as financial investment platform Futu Holdings, Haidilao, the restaurant chain whose overseas operator Super Hi International listed in New York last week, and CATL, the battery maker that is part of the boom in electric vehicle production.

Dimon sparked controversy in 2021 when he said JPMorgan would outlast China’s Communist party, for which he subsequently apologised twice.

At this year’s event, he said China and the US had a “common interest” in anti-terrorism and anti-nuclear proliferation.

“There’s no reason it has to get into a war,” he said. “China has never been expansionary.”