JPMorgan Chase shareholders should support a proposal to consider an independent chairman, proxy adviser Glass Lewis & Co. said.
The difference in this shareholder proposal, which will be up for a vote at the firm's annual meeting on May 17, is that it does not specifically target Jamie Dimon, who holds both the chairman and chief executive officer titles.
While the measure is similar to ones shareholders have rejected in the past, it says the board could wait until Dimon leaves New York-based JPMorgan before implementing the plan.
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Corporate governance experts normally recommend splitting the chairman and CEO roles at public companies, but Wells' shareholders let John Stumpf keep both jobs.
April 26 -
Bank of America shareholders voted Tuesday to allow Brian Moynihan to keep his dual titles of chairman and chief executive, with 63% of votes cast in favor of Moynihan.
September 22 -
Only 32% of JPMorgan Chase shareholders voted in favor of splitting Jamie Dimon's chairman and chief executive roles, but the victory can't erase the months of harsh scrutiny over Dimon's power and the bank's governance.
May 21
"We ultimately believe vesting a single person with both executive and board leadership concentrates too much responsibility in a single person and inhibits independent board oversight of executives on behalf of shareholders," Glass Lewis wrote in a report this week and obtained by Bloomberg.
Proxy advisers typically advocate for separating the two most powerful roles at a corporation. But companies and majorities of voting shareholders often ignore the advice.
Wells Fargo's
The issue resulted in a special vote last year at Bank of America after CEO Brian Moynihan added the chairman role without shareholder input.
The proposal was the only one in which Glass Lewis diverged from vote recommendations from JPMorgan's management.
