By Nandita Bose, Lananh Nguyen and Saeed Azhar
NEW YORK (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon met Lael Brainard, the director of the White House National Economic Council on Wednesday, while in Washington this week, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The meeting agenda was unclear.
Brainard met with a range of business leaders including Dimon, part of a series of meetings she has had over the last month with business, labor, advocacy, and academic leaders, the source said.
The meeting comes as First Republic Bank’s efforts to secure a capital infusion continued on Wednesday, as the troubled regional lender started to plan for the possibility it may need to downsize or get a government backstop.
The CEOs of major banks gathered in Washington for a two-day meeting which started on Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter previously said.
The quarterly meeting of the Financial Services Forum included Dimon and Bank of America Corp CEO Brian Moynihan, who head the nation’s two largest lenders, the sources said.
The banks were aiming to work out details for what needs to be done for First Republic within the coming 24 hours, another source said.
Eleven lenders, including the eight members of the Financial Services Forum, threw First Republic a lifeline of a combined $30 billion in deposits last week.
Major banks and private equity firms have so far balked at offering First Republic the capital infusion it craves for fear of releasing losses on the bank’s loan book and investment portfolio amid a rise in interest rates.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported First Republic is examining how it can downsize and sell parts of its business, including some of its loan book, in a bid to raise cash and cut costs.
(Reporting by Lananh Nguyen and Saeed Azhar in New York and Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Megan Davies, Jonathan Oatis and Anna Driver)
