REPORT: JP Morgan Kept A List Of How Hiring Elite Chinese Kids Turned Into Business Deals

The New York Times is out with its next report in a series that has exposed the questionable hiring practices at J.P. Morgan.

The firm has reportedly brought on on the children of elite Chinese officials in the hopes of securing business deals.

In the new report, Ben Protess and Jessica Silver-Greenberg find that federal authorities investigating the matter now have spreadsheets that "lists the bank's 'track record' for converting hires into business deals."

In one example, JP Morgan "coveted" business with Fubon, "a financial services conglomerate in Taiwan that, according to the spreadsheet, produced 2009 revenue of $900,000 for JPMorgan." From the Times:

In an August 2010 email reviewed by The Times, a JPMorgan banker in Hong Kong explained that the bank had "picked up a new mandate in Taiwan today," but that holding onto the deal would depend on securing a job for someone related to a company executive.

"All we have to do," the banker said, is secure the relative "a full-time analyst job at JPM in N.Y."

The problem, another employee in Hong Kong acknowledged, was that the candidate's "napping habit will be an eye-opening experience for our N.Y. colleagues."

Protess and Silver-Greenberg note that the Fubon deal is unlikely to raise red flags for authorities. Even if it's a cozy hire, Fubon is a private company and not state-owned. Still:

By 2009, the "Sons and Daughters" program was putting the job candidates on the fast track to employment. The documents show that applicants from prominent Chinese families faced less stringent hiring standards - and fewer job interviews - than the average junior-level hire.

And in the report, the Times details how (according to JPM documents) hires were "directly attributable linkage to business opportunity." Whether JPM did anything illegal remains to be seen, but prosecutors are certainly looking.

Read the full report at the New York Times »