摩根大通清心寡欲要“瘦身”

    美国最大的银行可能确实太大了。

    周二，摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)的年度投资者日，这家银行的高管层花了很多时间来讨论公司的“瘦身”计划。

    “坏账等于坏收入，”CEO杰米•戴蒙说。“发一大堆坏账，银行就撑不下去了。我要增加的是好收入。”

    这次会议上传出的重磅消息是摩根大通2014年计划在消费者和社区银行部门削减8,000个职位。事实上，削减的职位数量少于这家银行一年前在这些部门进行的裁员。但这只是摩根大通高管们所说的瘦身方式之一。高管们列出了该行计划退出或缩减规模的业务领域，包括预付卡、实物商品和抵押贷款业务。

    摩根大通称，它2013年提供的各类房屋贷款多达35种。到2014年底，摩根大通计划能减少至15种。而且，多年来第一次摩根大通表示，新的一年中不太可能增加银行分支机构的数目。相比之下，两年前该行新开了106家分支机构，三年前新开240家分支机构。这些分支机构本身的雇员数量也将比几年前减少20%。

    事实上，摩根大通唯一显示出扩张迹象的领域是风险管理和合规部门。这些部门正在招兵买马。

    从扩张到瘦身，这样的转变对于摩根大通合情合理。过去一年，这家银行似乎在各个地方都遇到了监管麻烦。竞争对手美银(Bank of America)和花旗集团(Citigroup)早在几年前就开始缩减业务。但这对于摩根大通而言是一个很大的转变。

    两年前，同样在投资者日上，戴蒙誓言将继续扩张，尽管政府推出新的监管条例，尽管经济疲弱，尽管有些人认为，分拆摩根大通分拆可获得更高估值。戴蒙当时表示，监管机构正在试图遏制摩根大通和其他银行，它们很快就会意识到，摩根大通这样的美国超级大行并没有大到足以与规模更大的外国同行同场竞技的地步。戴蒙当时质问：“波音(Boeing)和卡特彼勒(Caterpillar)将来都用中资银行大家就高兴了吗？”

    但如今，戴蒙和摩根大通似乎认为，缩减规模后他们可以做更多。

    问题是，瘦身是否值得。首席财务官玛丽安•雷克表示，摩根大通退出部分业务的计划明年将为该行节省10亿美元。她还说，最终该行的净利润将增长至270亿美元。要做到这一点，利率需要上升，经济必须改善。

    但明年实现利润增长很困难。这家银行预计2014年抵押贷款市场将下降34%。雷克称，2014年摩根大通一项关键的盈利能力指标可能会下降。像其他银行一样，摩根大通终于意识到，没有足够多的好收入能弥补放弃全部坏业务带来的缺口，至少目前的情况是这样。（财富中文网）

    The nation's largest bank may indeed be too big.

    On Tuesday, at its annual investor day, JPMorgan Chase executives spent a lot of time talking about the bank's plans to shrink.

    "Bad loans equal bad revenue," said CEO Jamie Dimon. "Do a lot of bad loans and you go out of business. I want to grow good revenue."

    The headline from the meeting was that JPMorgan (JPM) plans to eliminate 8,000 positions in its consumer and community bank divisions in 2013. That's actually fewer job cuts than the bank made in those departments a year ago. But it was only one of the ways JPMorgan executives said the bank was slimming down. Across the bank, executives highlighted businesses they said the bank plans to exit or scale back. Among them were pre-paid cards, physical commodities, and mortgages.

    JPMorgan said that coming into 2013 the bank offered 35 different types of home loans. By the end of 2014, JPMorgan plans to offer 15. And for the first time in years, JPMorgan said it will not likely increase the number of bank branches it operates in the next year. Compare that to two years ago, when the bank opened an additional 106 branches, and 240 the year before that. The branches themselves will have 20% fewer employees than they had just a few years ago.

    Indeed, the only place the bank appears to be growing is in risk management and compliance. Those divisions are hiring.

    The shift to thinking smaller makes sense for JPMorgan. In the past year, the bank seemed to run into problems with regulators everywhere it turned. Rivals Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) have already spent the past few years paring businesses. But the move marks a big shift for JPMorgan.

    Two years ago, at the same investor day, Dimon vowed to continue to grow his bank despite new regulations, a weak economy, and a suggestion by some that JPMorgan would be worth more broken up. He said regulators trying to rein in his bank and others would soon realize that U.S. mega-banks like JPMorgan were not big enough to compete with larger foreign rivals. "Would it be great for America if Boeing and Caterpillar were to use Chinese banks?" Dimon asked.

    Now, though, Dimon and Co. appear to think they can do more with less.

    The question is whether slimming down will pay off. CFO Marianne Lake said JPMorgan's plan to exit some businesses will save the bank $1 billion next year. Eventually, she says the bank's bottom line will grow to $27 billion. But for that to happen, interest rates will need to go up, and the economy will have to improve.

    For next year, though, higher profits might be tough to achieve. The bank said it expects the mortgage market to drop 34% in 2014. Lake said a key measure of profitability for JPMorgan is likely to drop in 2014. Like other banks, JPMorgan is finally realizing, at least for right now, there's just not enough good revenue to compensate for giving up all the bad stuff.