JP Morgan Rational retreat

By quitting private equity, JP Morgan is acknowledging the difficulty of pursuing deals that often put it in direct competition with the leveraged buyout houses it woos as investment banking clients. Nearly every other major Wall Street firm before it has come to this conclusion. Goldman Sachs is the glaring exception. At JP Morgan, the conflicts became particularly acute in last year’s auction for control of Warner Chilcott, the British pharmaceuticals group. JP Morgan Partners won the bidding,...