JPMorgan's Dimon has throat cancer, to begin treatment shortly

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he has been diagnosed with throat cancer but that the ailment is curable and he plans to remain actively involved in the largest U.S. bank's business.

In a memo to the bank's employees and shareholders on Tuesday, Dimon, 58, said the cancer was caught at an early stage and is confined to the original site and the adjacent lymph nodes on the right side of his neck.

He will undergo radiation and chemotherapy treatment that is expected to last about eight weeks. The company did not disclose the stage of the cancer.

'I feel very good now and will let all of you know if my health situation changes,' Dimon wrote. 'Importantly, there is no evidence of cancer elsewhere in my body.'

The cancer was discovered after Dimon, who was not feeling well about two weeks ago, went to see doctors, a person familiar with the matter said. Dimon spent last week in intensive tests and visiting multiple doctors, the person said. Dimon was never a smoker.

The company has a short, medium and long-term succession plan in place, the source added.

The news of Dimon's ailment is an unexpected blow for JPMorgan. Dimon, who has been chief executive of the bank for the past eight years, was credited for steering the company successfully through the financial crisis.

In recent years, however, the bank has run into headwinds that have taken off some of its sheen.

In 2012, the bank lost $6.2 billion from risky derivatives bets that came to be known as the 'London Whale' trades. And late last year, it agreed to a $13 billion settlement with the U.S. government to settle charges that it overstated the quality of mortgages it was selling to investors in the run-up to the financial crisis.

The bank's massive London Whale loss prompted shareholders last year to push Dimon to give up the chairman's role, which he also holds. But shareholders backed off when Dimon's allies suggested at the time he might leave the company if he lost one of the titles.

'One of the main reasons I'm a shareholder is Jamie Dimon, one of the biggest reasons by far,' said Michael Holland, founder of Holland & Co, an asset management firm overseeing more than $4 billion of assets, including JPMorgan shares. 'He is by numbers and the record one of the best financial CEOs of our generation.'

JPMorgan's shares were down 0.6 percent in after-market trading.

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Matt McCormick, a portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel, said investors probably 'give a 5 percent premium to his leadership.'

But McCormick added, 'I think it behooves him to ramp up the succession plans a little quicker than expected, even if his prognosis is great.'

It is not clear what impact, if any, Dimon's health would have on JPMorgan's board succession planning process.

Sources have previously said that the bank has several senior executives who could potentially succeed Dimon.

The most obvious successors from within the bank include Daniel Pinto, chief executive of corporate and investment bank, and Matthew Zames, JPMorgan's chief operating officer.

Other possible in-house successors include Gordon Smith, the CEO for the consumer bank, which accounts for about half of the company, and Mary Erdoes, chief executive of asset management.