James Bainbridge Lee, Jr. (October 30, 1952 – June 17, 2015) was an American
investment banker
Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with ...
, notable for his role in the development of the
leveraged finance
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money ( leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loa ...
markets in the U.S. in the 1980s. He is widely credited as the architect of the modern-day
syndicated loan 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 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 colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...
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 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
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase Bank or often as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City, that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and fi ...
. Lee ran the investment bank until the merger with
J.P. Morgan & Co. in 2001.
Following Chemical's merger with
Manufacturers Hanover in 1994, Lee founded the bank's
high yield (or
junk bond
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 ...
) 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 t ...
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
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money ( leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loa ...
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 IPO, the second largest U.S. IPO; and the $41 billion common stock sale of the
U.S. Treasury
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...
’s ownership of
AIG
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...
, 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.
Most recently, Lee also advised
Comcast 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 by
Michael Dell
Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies, one of the world's largest technology infrastructure companies. He is ranked the ...
and
Silver Lake,
[ GE on its $30 billion sale of NBC to Comcast,][ United Airlines in its merger with Continental Airlines, ]News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...
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 ...
, 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 Mosk ...
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