JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon Tells Fox Business "This is a Management Issue, Someone Screwed Up and They Are Now Paying"

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon gave a phone interview to FOX Business Network's (FBN) Charlie Gasparino about the $2 billion trading loss suffered from a failed hedging strategy they disclosed today. Dimon said “we screwed up” and “this is a management issue. Someone screwed up and they are now paying.” Gasparino added that Dimon “sounded confident” and that “he's prepared for the full monty onslaught about his reputation, how he screwed up.” Excerpts from the report are below, courtesy of Fox Business Network.

On Dimon telling Gasparino “we screwed up”:

I had a brief conversation with him a few minutes ago…he said listen, ‘we screwed up.' There was a group in London. What was interesting about it, he said it was not the trade itself that really caused it. The sort of trade that they do, it was hedges, the stuff that they thought was going to mitigate losses. It made a bad situation really bad. He also pointed out, and this is common sense. What do you think banks are going to do. Banks have a pool of money. If they put all that money into treasury bonds, here's what happens, the interest rates go up or the price goes down. And they lose a lot of money. This is just the nature of banking.”

On how Dimon still supports having five big banks:

“One thing I don't think Jamie will back away from, and this is where he and I disagree, is the notion of having all these big banks consolidating all the financial power into five big banks with JPMorgan at the top of that because they do all the trading, lots of the risk, lots of the trading and lending and banking activities. He won't back off of that.”

On Dimon saying it's a “management issue”:

“He thinks this is a management issue. Someone screwed up and now they are paying.”

On Dimon sounding confident:

“He sounded confident. One of the good things about this is that this is a very well-run bank. He knows what's going to come out. he's prepared for the full Monty onslaught about his reputation, how he screwed up. He's ready for all that.”

On how JPMorgan will do this quarter:

“Jamie Dimon is going to be talking about this in the next coming day. JPMorgan is likely to have a $4 billion profit this quarter. That's after paying for this…this is much more reputational and political.

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