James Bainbridge Lee, Jr. (October 30, 1952 – June 17, 2015) was an American investment banker, notable for his role in the development of the leveraged finance markets in the U.S. in the 1980s.
[1] At the time of his death, Lee was vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a member of the bank's executive committee.
[1] By organizing high yield with loan syndications and private equity coverage, and the newly formed M&A group, this led to a variety of market innovations which Chase pioneered.
[7] By 2007, Lee was placed at the center of a New York Times illustration title "Masters of the New Universe" where he was connected with some of the largest leveraged buyout transactions of the past decade.
[12] Most recently, Lee also advised Comcast on their announced acquisition of Time Warner Cable and planned divestitures of systems to Charter (pending),[13] the Dell Board of Directors Special Committee on the buyout of Dell by Michael Dell and Silver Lake,[12] GE on its $30 billion sale of NBC to Comcast,[13] United Airlines in its merger with Continental Airlines,[14] News Corporation on its purchase of Dow Jones,[12] was involved in the IPO of The Carlyle Group,[15] and co-led the IPOs of Facebook and Twitter.