Jamie Dimon’s son-in-law got caught up in a nasty argument with a Texas-based energy official who accused him, along with private equity giant Apollo Global Management, of orchestrating a scheme to rock oil and drilling gas from his stake in the lucrative business he built.
Joey Romeo – a Princeton-trained buyout executive who married his Harvard Business School sweetheart Julia Dimon in 2011 – is among a group of Apollo executives accused of luring Varun Mishra into a partnership that has ultimately turned sour, with Mishra alleging he was cheated on $ 21 million, according to an explosive arbitration claim filed by Mishra last month.
After harnessing Mishra’s expertise in natural gas and oil to build an energy company, Romeo and other Apollo executives are said to have kicked him out of his post as CEO – a coup shortly after that Mishra had raised questions about the millions of dollars Romeo had ordered to be charged at the expense of the company. accounts, depending on the record.
People close to Apollo denied that the expenses paid by Varun’s company were inappropriate.
The spat offers rare insight not only into the turbulent world of private equity transactions, but also into the affairs of family members of billionaire boss JPMorgan Chase, most of whom have kept a low profile.
Romeo, now in his thirties, owns a unit at 1185 Park Ave. – two stories below the legendary bank mogul – a $ 7 million, 3,825 square foot spread that is the former home of famed furniture designer Vladimir Kagan, according to property records. .
Aside from a few wedding snaps on social media, one of the few publicly available photos of Romeo surfaced in a controversial December 2013 Christmas card, in which Dimon and his family walked around the lavish apartment. hitting tennis balls. In one shot, Romeo was caught jumping barefoot over furniture.
Romeo has been with Apollo since 2013 – and was brought aboard at the behest of the late and legendary JPMorgan negotiator Jimmy Lee, according to sources. Prior to Apollo, Romeo was a partner in the Energy Financial Services business of GE Capital.
“Jimmy called a lot of people to tell them, ‘Hire Joey,'” a source with knowledge of Apollo told The Post. “Joey didn’t go through the normal recruiting process.”
MIshra, meanwhile, says Romeo has grown arrogant and sarcastic as their business relationship has gradually deteriorated.
“Joseph Romeo can be described as someone who constantly puts you down,” Mishra, a 41-year-old Indian immigrant who came to the United States as a student, said in a written statement to the Post. “Without knowing me – or without knowing my immigration background – he said to me, ‘Isn’t it too easy for all of you to make money? “”
Romeo, who is named a defendant in the request for arbitration with Apollo and various other current and former employees of the company, did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
An Apollo spokesperson told The Post that Mishra was “unhappy” and said he was fired “for just cause.” The spokesperson added that Mishra had hired six different groups of lawyers and filed a previous request for arbitration, “which he voluntarily withdrew.”
“We strongly support our team and categorically reject the false, defamatory and constantly evolving allegations made by Mr. Mishra,” said the spokesperson for Apollo.
Mishra told the Post he withdrew a previous arbitration request because he believed it gave him a better chance of settling with Apollo. After this settlement collapsed, Mishra said he filed the current settlement.
According to Mishra’s claim, Apollo executives approached him in 2015 to offer him at least $ 400 million to set up a business that would eventually become American Petroleum Partners. Under the deal, Mishra would contribute to the Pennsylvania wells he had amassed and serve as CEO on an H1-B visa while Apollo would provide the capital for the expansion.
But the following year, Apollo and Romeo pulled the rug out from under Mishra’s foot, making a deal with APP to acquire a large natural gas fracking company for $ 360 million – only to turn around and recoup it. ‘business through another business in which some Apollo executives were “likely direct or indirect beneficiaries,” according to the arbitration documents.
Although he was allegedly cheated by Apollo over the hydraulic fracturing deal, Mishra had previously committed his wells to the APP company, according to the complaint.
At that point, Mishra told the Post, he noticed that Romeo had approved the expenses of Apollo executives’ limousines and other high-end trips to be paid for by American Petroleum. According to Mishra’s lawsuit, Romeo was siphoning off “several million dollars” from Mishra’s business to fill the accounts of Apollo and his affiliates.
Mishra alleges that Romeo ordered Collin King, then APP CFO, to “make substantial payments to Apollo without Mishra knowing about”.
“Prior to being fired, to my knowledge, he never alleged that the company reimbursed expenses – to Apollo or anyone else – that were not 100% legitimate expenses,” said King, who now works for APP’s successor company, High Road Resources. To post. “Romeo never asked me to approve improper spending, and I never did.”
MIshra and her attorney both told the Post that he had indeed raised the issue of inappropriate spending with King and with Romeo directly.
Mishra claims he sounded the alarm, drawing him to the attention of Romeo’s supervisor, but his protests exploded in his face. On November 7, 2019, Romeo traveled to Canonsburg, PA with his boss, Olivia Wassenaar, to confront Mishra. They demanded that he resign and accept a “paltry” payment – saying otherwise “he would be fired for just cause,” the file says.
Mishra refused, noting in his arbitration record that he had never been reprimanded or warned – let alone disciplined – for his performance as President and CEO of APP, and that he was never had received no written notice of breach of his employment contract.
The allegations come as Apollo is under a 2016 consent order after the Securities and Exchange Commission said a senior partner of Apollo charged expenses to certain funds managed by the company. If Mishra’s claims prove to be true, they could trigger another SEC investigation into Apollo’s practices, sources told the Post.
Ernest Badway, a partner at Fox Rothschild law firm, said the lens of the allegations “looked awful” but added that they are not necessarily illegal. “Unfortunately, it would be a misallocation of expenses” if Apollo’s partners billed APP for travel and other expenses instead of the company itself, Badway said.
“The SEC started investigations with much less than that,” he said. Still, Badway said, SEC regulators will focus on those potentially harmed by the alleged actions of Romeo and Apollo; if investors suffered no losses – and only Mishra did – regulators might be less adept at probing the situation.
Meanwhile, Apollo sold APP’s assets in 2020 to Tug Hill Operating, owned by Quantum Energy Partners, for around $ 30 million, according to the arbitration claim. In May of last year, Quantum sold its assets – including the old APPs – to Premier Natural Resources for $ 6 billion, according to the claim.
Mishra received around $ 700,000 for his stake in APP after the tug was sold, but claims he should have received $ 21 million based on the value of the assets resold, including the $ 10 million in capital that ‘he implemented when he signed a deal with Apollo.
Jamie Dimon’s son-in-law got caught up in a nasty argument with a Texas-based energy official who accused him, along with private equity giant Apollo Global Management, of orchestrating a scheme to rock oil and drilling gas from his stake in the lucrative business he built.
Joey Romeo – a Princeton-trained buyout executive who married his Harvard Business School sweetheart Julia Dimon in 2011 – is among a group of Apollo executives accused of luring Varun Mishra into a partnership that has ultimately turned sour, with Mishra alleging he was cheated on $ 21 million, according to an explosive arbitration claim filed by Mishra last month.
After harnessing Mishra’s expertise in natural gas and oil to build an energy company, Romeo and other Apollo executives are said to have kicked him out of his post as CEO – a coup shortly after that Mishra had raised questions about the millions of dollars Romeo had ordered to be charged at the expense of the company. accounts, depending on the record.
People close to Apollo denied that the expenses paid by Varun’s company were inappropriate.
The spat offers rare insight not only into the turbulent world of private equity transactions, but also into the affairs of family members of billionaire boss JPMorgan Chase, most of whom have kept a low profile.
Romeo, now in his thirties, owns a unit at 1185 Park Ave. – two stories below the legendary bank mogul – a $ 7 million, 3,825 square foot spread that is the former home of famed furniture designer Vladimir Kagan, according to property records. .
Aside from a few wedding snaps on social media, one of the few publicly available photos of Romeo surfaced in a controversial December 2013 Christmas card, in which Dimon and his family walked around the lavish apartment. hitting tennis balls. In one shot, Romeo was caught jumping barefoot over furniture.
Romeo has been with Apollo since 2013 – and was brought aboard at the behest of the late and legendary JPMorgan negotiator Jimmy Lee, according to sources. Prior to Apollo, Romeo was a partner in the Energy Financial Services business of GE Capital.
“Jimmy called a lot of people to tell them, ‘Hire Joey,'” a source with knowledge of Apollo told The Post. “Joey didn’t go through the normal recruiting process.”
MIshra, meanwhile, says Romeo has grown arrogant and sarcastic as their business relationship has gradually deteriorated.
“Joseph Romeo can be described as someone who constantly puts you down,” Mishra, a 41-year-old Indian immigrant who came to the United States as a student, said in a written statement to the Post. “Without knowing me – or without knowing my immigration background – he said to me, ‘Isn’t it too easy for all of you to make money? “”
Romeo, who is named a defendant in the request for arbitration with Apollo and various other current and former employees of the company, did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
An Apollo spokesperson told The Post that Mishra was “unhappy” and said he was fired “for just cause.” The spokesperson added that Mishra had hired six different groups of lawyers and filed a previous request for arbitration, “which he voluntarily withdrew.”
“We strongly support our team and categorically reject the false, defamatory and constantly evolving allegations made by Mr. Mishra,” said the spokesperson for Apollo.
Mishra told the Post he withdrew a previous arbitration request because he believed it gave him a better chance of settling with Apollo. After this settlement collapsed, Mishra said he filed the current settlement.
According to Mishra’s claim, Apollo executives approached him in 2015 to offer him at least $ 400 million to set up a business that would eventually become American Petroleum Partners. Under the deal, Mishra would contribute to the Pennsylvania wells he had amassed and serve as CEO on an H1-B visa while Apollo would provide the capital for the expansion.
But the following year, Apollo and Romeo pulled the rug out from under Mishra’s foot, making a deal with APP to acquire a large natural gas fracking company for $ 360 million – only to turn around and recoup it. ‘business through another business in which some Apollo executives were “likely direct or indirect beneficiaries,” according to the arbitration documents.
Although he was allegedly cheated by Apollo over the hydraulic fracturing deal, Mishra had previously committed his wells to the APP company, according to the complaint.
At that point, Mishra told the Post, he noticed that Romeo had approved the expenses of Apollo executives’ limousines and other high-end trips to be paid for by American Petroleum. According to Mishra’s lawsuit, Romeo was siphoning off “several million dollars” from Mishra’s business to fill the accounts of Apollo and his affiliates.
Mishra alleges that Romeo ordered Collin King, then APP CFO, to “make substantial payments to Apollo without Mishra knowing about”.
“Prior to being fired, to my knowledge, he never alleged that the company reimbursed expenses – to Apollo or anyone else – that were not 100% legitimate expenses,” said King, who now works for APP’s successor company, High Road Resources. To post. “Romeo never asked me to approve improper spending, and I never did.”
MIshra and her attorney both told the Post that he had indeed raised the issue of inappropriate spending with King and with Romeo directly.
Mishra claims he sounded the alarm, drawing him to the attention of Romeo’s supervisor, but his protests exploded in his face. On November 7, 2019, Romeo traveled to Canonsburg, PA with his boss, Olivia Wassenaar, to confront Mishra. They demanded that he resign and accept a “paltry” payment – saying otherwise “he would be fired for just cause,” the file says.
Mishra refused, noting in his arbitration record that he had never been reprimanded or warned – let alone disciplined – for his performance as President and CEO of APP, and that he was never had received no written notice of breach of his employment contract.
The allegations come as Apollo is under a 2016 consent order after the Securities and Exchange Commission said a senior partner of Apollo charged expenses to certain funds managed by the company. If Mishra’s claims prove to be true, they could trigger another SEC investigation into Apollo’s practices, sources told the Post.
Ernest Badway, a partner at Fox Rothschild law firm, said the lens of the allegations “looked awful” but added that they are not necessarily illegal. “Unfortunately, it would be a misallocation of expenses” if Apollo’s partners billed APP for travel and other expenses instead of the company itself, Badway said.
“The SEC started investigations with much less than that,” he said. Still, Badway said, SEC regulators will focus on those potentially harmed by the alleged actions of Romeo and Apollo; if investors suffered no losses – and only Mishra did – regulators might be less adept at probing the situation.
Meanwhile, Apollo sold APP’s assets in 2020 to Tug Hill Operating, owned by Quantum Energy Partners, for around $ 30 million, according to the arbitration claim. In May of last year, Quantum sold its assets – including the old APPs – to Premier Natural Resources for $ 6 billion, according to the claim.
Mishra received around $ 700,000 for his stake in APP after the tug was sold, but claims he should have received $ 21 million based on the value of the assets resold, including the $ 10 million in capital that ‘he implemented when he signed a deal with Apollo.