James Bainbridge Lee, Jr. (October 30, 1952 – June 17, 2015) was an American
investment banker, notable for his role in the development of the
leveraged finance markets in the U.S. in the 1980s. He is widely credited as the architect of the modern-day
syndicated loan
A syndicated loan is one that is provided by a group of lenders and is structured, arranged, and administered by one or several commercial banks or investment banks known as lead arrangers.
The syndicated loan market is the dominant way for larg ...
market.
[The New York Public Library Honors James B. Lee, Jr.]
New York Public Library, June 26, 2008 At the time of his death, Lee was vice chairman of
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a member of the bank's executive committee. He was also Co-Chairman of JPMorgan's investment bank.
Early life
Lee was born on October 30, 1952 in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York City. He was educated at the
Canterbury School. He graduated from
Williams College
Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...
in 1975, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in Economics and Art History.
A trustee of Williams College, the college's snack bar and most recent track and field center is named after him.
Career
Lee joined
Chemical Bank
Chemical Bank was a bank with headquarters in New York City from 1824 until 1996. At the end of 1995, Chemical was the third-largest bank in the U.S., with about $182.9 billion in assets and more than 39,000 employees around the world.
Beginning ...
in 1975 and worked in a variety of lending businesses until 1980, when he founded and ran Chemical's merchant bank in Australia. In 1982, he returned to the US and started the bank's syndicated leverage finance group, which constituted the origins of the investment banking business at Chemical and later
Chase Manhattan Bank. Lee ran the investment bank until the merger with
J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2001.
Following Chemical's merger with
Manufacturers Hanover
Manufacturers Hanover Corporation was the bank holding company formed as parent of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, a large New York bank formed by a merger in 1961. After 1969, Manufacturers Hanover Trust became a subsidiary of Manufac ...
in 1994, Lee founded the bank's
high yield
In finance, a high-yield bond (non-investment-grade bond, speculative-grade bond, or junk bond) is a bond that is rated below investment grade by credit rating agencies. These bonds have a higher risk of default or other adverse credit events, ...
(or
junk bond) business, which was the bank's first public securities operation. At the same time, he built the bank's
financial sponsor coverage business focused on
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
firms as well as the bank's
mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
business.
By organizing high yield with loan syndications and private equity coverage, and the newly formed M&A group, this led to a variety of market innovations which Chase pioneered. Lee also led the team that resulted in Chase acquiring Hambrecht & Quist which gave the bank its first public equity business and first dedicated technology investment banking practice. He remained active in the technology industry.
In 2000, Lee was effectively demoted in favor of
Geoffrey Boisi but within two years Biosi was out and Lee was again leading investment banking at JP Morgan. By 2007, Lee was placed at the center of a New York Times illustration title "Masters of the New Universe" where he was connected with some of the largest
leveraged buyout transactions of the past decade.
[Masters of the New Universe]
New York Times, April 4, 2007
Lee led the J.P. Morgan teams that executed the $25 billion
Alibaba Group IPO, the largest IPO in history; the $23 billion
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
IPO, the second largest U.S. IPO; and the $41 billion common stock sale of the
U.S. Treasury’s ownership of
AIG, resulting from the U.S. Government's bailout of the company. He also led the negotiations with the U.S. Treasury for the
financial restructuring of Chrysler
Chrysler LLC and 24 of its affiliated subsidiaries filed a consolidated petition for bankruptcy on April 30, 2009, with the federal bankruptcy court in New York. The court filing occurred upon failure of the company to come to an agreement with ...
.
Most recently, Lee also advised
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
on their announced acquisition of
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...
and planned divestitures of systems to Charter (pending),
the Dell Board of Directors Special Committee on the buyout of
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
by
Michael Dell and
Silver Lake
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
,
[ GE on its $30 billion sale of NBC to Comcast,][ United Airlines in its merger with Continental Airlines, News Corporation on its purchase of Dow Jones,][ was involved in the IPO of ]The Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...
, and co-led the IPOs of Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
and Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
.[
Lee was a member of ]Kappa Beta Phi
Kappa Beta Phi () is a secret society, best known for its surviving Wall Street chapter that is made up of high-ranking financial executives.
The purpose of the organization today is largely social and honorific. The current honor society meets o ...
.
Death
Lee died on June 17, 2015, unexpectedly after experiencing shortness of breath while exercising. He is survived by his wife Beth and three children.JPMorgan Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee Dead at 62
Bloomberg, June 17, 2015
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, James B., Jr.
1952 births
2015 deaths
American investment bankers
Canterbury School (Connecticut) alumni
JPMorgan Chase people
People from Darien, Connecticut
Private equity and venture capital investors
Williams College alumni