A WHIZ THEREWAS
Jimmy Lee, 62, is dead and Street mourns
Four decades ago, when Jimmy Lee first joined the ranks of the dealmakers at Chemical Bank, Jamie Dimon was a college student, NBC was run by RCA, and “Ali Baba” was a character in “A Thousand and One Nights.”
Since then, Wall Street — and America— has changed dramatically, but one thing hadn’t: Jimmy Lee.
Lee, the dealmaking maestro who served as vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase, died unexpectedly on Wednesday at 62.
“Jimmy was a master of his craft, but hewas so much more— he was an incomparable force of nature,” Dimon, now JPMorgan chief executive, said in an internal memo obtained by The Post.
Lee was a master at putting together some of the biggest deals that Wall Street had ever seen— from Comcast’s $ 30 billion purchase of NBC Universal in 2011 to the $ 25 billion initial public offering of today’s Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce company that last year launched the largest IPO ever.
“Look inside every major deal in the last 20 years and hewas in that room,” said David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery Communications.
Lee experienced shortness of breath after a workout and went to the hospital where he died, said a source close to JPM. “It was very unexpected,” the source said.
News of Lee’s death shocked everyone on Wall Street and sparked an instant outpouring of gratitude from various precincts of the business world.
Rupert Murdoch, CEO of 21st Century Fox and chairman of News Corp., which owns The Post, said he was “shocked” by Lee’s passing.
Lee, known for his Gordon Gekkolike suspenders ( or did Michael Douglas, the “Wall Street” character, wear Leelike suspenders?) and slickedback hair, Lee was the embodiment of Street swagger and drive. He was known to brag to reporters about his 20hour days and earlymorning workout routine — and to show off the giant American flag behind his office desk.
The investment banker, who basically invented the leveraged loan, was constantly buzzing with energy.
Lee, who joined Chemical Bank in 1975, was the third shocking death of a wellknown business executive in recent weeks, several bankers noted.
David Goldberg, husband of Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg, died suddenly in May after an accident on a treadmill while on vacation. Also last month, Ed Gilligan, the president and likely CEO heir apparent at American Express, died of a heart attack while flying back to New York on the company jet.
And almost exactly a year ago, Dimon himself announced that he had earlystage throat cancer. After months of treatment, there is “no evidence of cancer,” he said in December.
Lee and his wife, Beth, had three children, Lexi, Jami and Izzy.
Legendary JPMorgan Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee put together some of Wall Street’s biggest deals, including: