Many of you may have seen this already, but this past week's news brought with it an update to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's health situation–positive news on his cancer treatment results, for which we all can be grateful. I posted here about Dimon's earlier public disclosure that he was undergoing treatment for this cancer. Based on publicly available information, I give Dimon my (very unofficial) "Power T for Transparency" cheer for 2014. (The "Power T" is The University of Tennessee's key–and now almost exclusive–branding symbol. See my earlier posts on UT's related branding decisions regarding the Lady Volunteers here and here.)
As many of you know, I have written about securities law and corporate law disclosure issues relating to private facts about key executives (which include questions relating to the physical health of these important corporate officers). I do not plan to rehash all that here. But I will note that I think friend and Glom blogger David Zaring gets it just right in his brief report on the recent Dimon announcement (with one small typo corrected and a hyperlink omitted):
Not to pile on, but there's the slightly unsettling trend of CEOs talking, or not, about their health. Surely material information a real investor would want to know about when deciding whether to buy or sell a stock in these days of the imperial CEO. But deeply unprivate. . . . The stock is up 2% on the day. It will be interesting to see whether this email makes its way into a securities filing.
Love that post. Thanks, David.
Sadly, as I was drafting this post, I learned that Kansas City Chiefs safety and former Tennessee Volunteer football standout Eric Berry has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. This obviously is not a matter of public company business disclosure regulation (given that the Kansas City Chiefs franchise, while incorporated, apparently is privately held). But I know I join many in and outside Vol Country in wishing Eric the same success in his cancer treatment that Dimon appears to have had to date with his.