Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan retirement is still “five years away”

For years, Jamie Dimon has had a catchphrase: if you ask when he will leave JPMorgan, the answer is always five years away, no matter when the question is asked.

But two years ago, Dimon said in a press release that after the bank named two co-presidents, they could step in as CEO if needed, and that he would remain CEO for “about five years.”

Now it’s today: when CNBC asked about it during a media call on Tuesday, Dimon did not seem eager to pin down the timeline.

“My answer hasn’t changed. It’s still five years. If we ever settle on an exact retirement date, we’ll let you know.”

Understandably, the 63-year-old Dimon is not in a rush to think about retirement. He turned JPMorgan into America’s biggest bank after the financial crisis and became an industry giant spanning the real economy and Wall Street.

The company just posted the most profitable year in banking history, and after the stock soared about 40% last year, JPMorgan is now the most highly valued of the big lenders.

One reason the bank issued that January 2018 statement was to ease concerns that its talented deputies would leave because of frustration, a criticism that had been raised before. Dimon’s deputies later went on to run banks and financial institutions around the world, most recently at Wells Fargo.

A JPMorgan spokesperson said the board will ultimately decide when Dimon retires, and noted that the 2018 wording was only an approximate estimate.

Dimon’s rival at Bank of America, 60-year-old Brian Moynihan, has said he hopes to lead his company as long as Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett has led his.