On Monday morning, the co-anchors of CNBC's Squawkbox program each selected a 'businessman of the year' for 2007.
I don't know who Carl what's-his-name chose, but I recall Becky Quick selecting a fund manager who shorted mortgage-related instruments with great success. She was going to choose Warren Buffett because Berkshire had a roughly 28% return. The fund manager did much, much better.
Joe Kernen chose Jamie Dimon, CEO of Chase. According to Kernen, with whom I typically agree, Dimon's firm had 2007 total return of -10%, making it a relative star versus Citigroup's roughly -50% return. As I wrote here recently, much of Chase's outperformance over the past five years occurred before Dimon showed up. This year, the company lost its shareholders about 10% of their value.
How about looking among the 10 best large-cap total return performers this year, Joe? I held Apple and National Oilwell Varco, as I noted in this post. Both were among that group.
Why not name Steve Jobs as the businessman of 2007? He introduced a raft of new products, repriced others to throw his competition off balance, and still managed to outperform the S&P500 Index for his shareholders by a wide, wide margin.
But the so-so CEO of a mediocre money center bank? I don't think so.
I like you a lot Joe, but you could have done much better than that.
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