NEW YORK: JPMorgan Chase & Co. has urged shareholders to vote against appointing a committee to explore a break up of the bank, reiterating that splitting its businesses would not be in investors鈥� best interests.
According to a regulatory filing, a shareholder, Bartlett Naylor, plans to propose at JPMorgan鈥檚 annual general meeting on May 17 that the bank consider splitting into two or more companies.
Naylor鈥檚 resolution recommends that one company perform basic business and consumer lending, while the other units focus on investment banking operations.
Naylor, who works for the non-profit Public Citizen, has filed nearly identical resolutions at Bank of America, and Citigroup in recent years.
JPMorgan said the formation of a special committee was unnecessary as an extensive review from 2015 had shown splitting off businesses would likely negatively impact shareholder value.
The biggest US bank by assets is one of the world鈥檚 30 globally systemic banks, deemed 鈥渢oo big to fail鈥� by regulators.
Handling risky behavior on Wall Street remains a hot topic at US presidential debates, with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders calling for breakups of big banks and criticizing rival Hillary Clinton for being too close to Wall Street.
Sanders has pledged to create a too-big-to-fail list of commercial banks, shadow banks, and insurance companies within the first 100 days of his presidential administration and to break up those institutions in the first year.