JPMorgan Chase & Co.

(NYSE: JPM) is one of the oldest financial services firms in

the world. The company, headquartered in New York City, is a leader in investment
banking, financial services, asset and wealth management and private equity. With
assets of $1.6 trillion, JPMorgan Chase is currently the third largest banking
institution in the United States,[3] behind Bank of America and Citigroup. The hedge
fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is the largest hedge fund in the United States with $34
billion in assets as of 2007.[4] Formed in 2000 when Chase Manhattan Corporation
acquired J.P. Morgan & Co., the firm serves millions of consumers in the United
States and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and
governmental clients.
In 2004, the company merged with Bank One Corp., bringing on board CEO Jamie
Dimon as president and COO and designating him as CEO William B. Harrison, Jr.'s
successor. Dimon's pay was pegged at 90% of Harrison's. Dimon quickly made his
influence felt by embarking on a cost-cutting strategy and replaced former JPMorgan
Chase executives in key positions with Bank One executives -- many of whom were
with Dimon at Citigroup. Dimon became CEO in January 2006 and Chairman in
December 2006.
The Chase brand named is used for credit card services in the United States and
Canada and the bank's retail banking activities in the United States. The JPMorgan
brand is used by the Investment Bank as well as the Wealth & Asset Management
Group's partially merged Private Bank and Personal Client Services divisions.
Fiduciary activity within W&A is done under the aegis of JPMorgan Chase Bank,
N.A. -- the actual trustee. The newly acquired Bear Stearns private client group is
expected to operate under the name "Bear Stearns Wealth Management, a
JPMorgan Company" within the Wealth & Asset Management structure.
The New York Chemical Manufacturing Company was founded in 1823 as a maker
of various chemicals. In 1824, the company amended its charter to perform banking
activities and created the Chemical Bank of New York. After 1851, the bank was
separated from its parent and grew organically and through a series of mergers,
most notably with Corn Exchange Bank in 1954, Texas Commerce Bank (a large
bank in Texas) in 1986, and Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Company in 1991 (the
first major bank merger "among equals"). At many points throughout this history,
Chemical Bank was the largest bank in the United States (either in terms of assets
or deposit market share).
In 1996, Chemical acquired the Chase Manhattan Corporation taking the more
prominent Chase name. In 2000, the combined company acquired J.P. Morgan &
Co. and combined the two names to form what is today JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPMorgan Chase retains Chemical Bank's headquarters at 277 Park Avenue and
stock price history.

The Chase Manhattan Bank was formed upon the 1955 purchase of Chase National
Bank (established in 1877) by the Bank of the Manhattan Company (established in
1799), the company's oldest predecessor institution. The Bank of the Manhattan
Company was the creation of Aaron Burr, who transformed The Manhattan
Company from a water carrier into a bank.
Led by David Rockefeller during the 1970s and the 1980s, Chase Manhattan
emerged as one of the largest and most prestigious banking concerns, with
leadership positions in syndicated lending, treasury and securities services, credit
cards, mortgages, and retail financial services. Weakened by the real estate
collapse in the early 1990s, it was acquired by Chemical Bank in 1996 but retained
the Chase name. Prior to its merger with J.P. Morgan & Co., Chase acquired San
Francisco-based Hambrecht & Quist in 1999 for $1.35 billion.
According to page 114 of An Empire of Wealth by John Steele Gordon, the origin of
this strand of JPMorgan Chase's history runs as follows:
"At the turn of the nineteenth century, obtaining a bank charter required an act of the
state legislature. This of course injected a powerful element of politics into the
process and invited what today would be called corruption but then was regarded as
business as usual. Hamilton's political enemy -- and eventual murderer -- Aaron Burr
was able to create a bank by sneaking a clause into a charter for a company, called
the Manhatan Company, to provide clean wter to New York City. The innocuous-
looking clause allowed the company to invest surplus capital in any lawful
enterprise. Within six months of the company's creation, and long before it had laid a
single sectin of water pipe, the company opened a bank, the Bank of the Manhattan
Company. Still in existence, it is today J.P.Morgan Chase, the second largest bank
in the United States."
The heritage of the House of Morgan traces its roots back to the partnership of
Drexel, Morgan & Co. which in 1895, was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. (see also: J.
Pierpont Morgan). Arguably the most influential financial institutions of its era, J.P.
Morgan & Co. financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, which
took over the business of Andrew Carnegie and others and was the world's first
billion-dollar corporation. In 1895, J.P. Morgan & Co. supplied the United States
government with $62 million in gold to float a bond issue and restore the treasury
surplus of $100 million. In 1892, the company began to finance the New York, New
Haven and Hartford Railroad and led it through a series of acquisitions that made it
the dominant railroad transporter in New England.
Built in 1914, 23 Wall Street was known as the "House of Morgan," and for decades
the bank's headquarters was the most important address in American finance. At
noon, on September 16, 1920, a terrorist bomb exploded in front of the bank,
injuring 400 and killing 38. Shortly before the bomb went off, a warning note was
placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. The warning read:
"Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be
sure death for all of you. American Anarchists Fighters." While theories abound
about who was behind the Wall Street bombing and why they did it, after twenty
years of investigation the FBI rendered the file inactive in 1940 without ever finding
the perpetrators.
In August 1914, Henry P. Davison, a Morgan partner, traveled to the UK and made a
deal with the Bank of England to make J.P. Morgan & Co. the monopoly underwriter
of war bonds for UK and France. The Bank of England became a "fiscal agent" of
J.P. Morgan & Co. and vice versa. The company also invested in the suppliers of
war equipment to Britain and France. Thus, the company profited from the financing
and purchasing activities of the two European governments.
In the 1930s, all J.P. Morgan & Co. along with all integrated banking businesses in
the United States, was required by the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act to
separate its investment banking from its commercial banking operations. J.P.
Morgan & Co. chose to operate as a commercial bank, because at the time
commercial lending was perceived to be more profitable and prestigious business in
the post depression era. Additionally, many within J.P. Morgan believed that a
change in the climate would allow the company to resume its securities businesses
but it would be nearly impossible to reconstitute the bank if it were disassembled.
In 1935, after being barred from securities business for over a year, the heads of
J.P. Morgan made the decision to spinoff its investment banking operations. Led by
J.P. Morgan partners, Henry S. Morgan (son of J. Pierpont Morgan) and Harold
Stanley, Morgan Stanley was founded on September 16, 1935 with $6.6 million of
nonvoting preferred stock from J.P. Morgan partners. In order to bolster its position,
in 1959, J.P. Morgan merged with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York to form
the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. The bank would continue to operate as
Morgan Guaranty through the 1980s before beginning to migrate back toward the
use of the J.P. Morgan brand. In 1988, the company once again began operating
exclusively as J.P. Morgan & Co.

Bank One Corporation was formed upon the 1998 merger between Banc One of
Ohio and First Chicago NBD. These two large banking companies had themselves
been created through the merger of many banks. This merger was largely
considered a failure until Jamie Dimon -- recently ousted as President of Citigroup --
took over and reformed the new firm's practices -- especially its disasterous
technology mishmash inherited from the many mergers prior to this one. Mr. Dimon
effected more than sufficient changes to make Bank One Corporation a viable
merger partner for JPMorgan Chase.
Bank One Corporation traced its roots to First Bancgroup of Ohio, founded as a
holding company for City National Bank of Columbus, Ohio and several other banks
in that state, all of which were renamed "Bank One" when the holding company was
renamed Bank One Corporation. With the beginning of interstate banking they
spread into other states, always renaming acquired banks "Bank One", though for a
long time they resisted combining them into one bank. After the NBD merger,
adverse financial results led to the departure of CEO John B. McCoy, whose father
and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors. Jamie Dimon, a former
key executive of Citigroup, was brought in to head the company. JPMorgan Chase
completed the acquisition of Bank One in 2004.
At the end of 2007, Bear Stearns was the fifth largest investment bank in the United
States but its market capitalization had deteriorated through the second half of 2007.
On Friday, March 14 2008 Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. lost 47% of its market value to
close at $30.00 per share as rumors emerged that clients were withdrawing capital
from the bank. Over the following weekend it emerged that Bear Stearns might
prove insolvent and on or around March 15, 2008 the Federal Reserve engineered a
deal to prevent a wider systemic crisis from the collapse of Bear Stearns.
On March 16 2008, JPMorgan Chase announced that it had plans to acquire Bear
Stearns &Co. Inc. in a stock swap worth $2.00 per share or $240 million pending
mutual shareholder approval scheduled within 90 days. Until then, JPMorgan Chase
has agreed to guarantee all Bear Stearns trades and business process flows. Two
days later, on March 18 2008, JPMorgan Chase announced the acquisition of Bear
Stearns for $236 million. The stock swap agreement was completed in the late night
hours of March 18 2008, with JPMorgan exchanging 0.05473 of each of its shares
for one Bear share, which were valued at $2 each.
On March 24 2008, a revised offer was announced at approximately $10 per share.
Under the revised terms, JPMorgan immediately acquired a 39.5% stake in Bear
Stearns (using newly issued shares) at the new offer price and gained a
commitment from the board (representing another 10% of the share capital) that its
members would vote in favour of the new deal. The merger was completed by June
6, 2008 and Bear Stearns is currently part of JPMorgan Chase.

In 2006, JPMorgan Chase purchased Collegiate Funding Services, LLC, and

created Chase Education Finance.
On April 7 2006, JPMorgan Chase announced it would be swapping its corporate
trust unit for The Bank of New York Co.'s retail and small business banking network.
The swap valued The Bank of New York business at $3.1 billion and JPMorgan's
trust unit at $2.8 billion and gives Chase access to 338 additional branches and
700,000 new customers in the New York, New Jersey, and Indiana operations
On 26 March 2008, JPMorgan acquired the UK-based carbon offsetting company
ClimateCare.
Although Chase Manhattan Bank's headquarters were once located at the One
Chase Manhattan Plaza building in downtown Manhattan, the current world
headquarters for JPMorgan Chase & Co. are located at 270 Park Avenue. The bank
moved some of its operations to the JPMorgan Chase Tower (formerly Texas
Commerce Bank Tower) in Houston, Texas, when it purchased Texas Commerce
Bank. Since merging with Bank One in 2004, retail services (branded as "Chase")
are headquartered in Chicago. The Card Services division has its headquarters in
Wilmington, DE, with Card Services offices in Elgin, IL, Mumbai, India, San Antonio,
TX, and Frederick, MD. There are also large operations centers in Brooklyn, NY,
Rochester, NY, Columbus, OH, Dallas, TX, Fort Worth, TX, Indianapolis, IN, Tampa,
FL, Orlando, FL, Louisville, KY, Newark, DE, Phoenix, AZ, Milwaukee, WI, Toronto,
ON Canada, Glasgow, United Kingdom and Bournemouth, United Kingdom. The
backoffice and Technology operations offices based in Manila in the Philippines, and
Mumbai and Bangalore, India are currently being aggressively staffed. One of the
biggest acquisitions was made in 2005 when Chase was introduced to the Canadian
market. Conveniently located in Ottawa,On the office boasts 480 employees.
The JPMorgan Investment Bank also maintains a number of high-profile offices
around the globe, with the largest concentrations outside the US in London, Tokyo,
Hong Kong and Singapore. The bulk of North American operations, however, take
place in three buildings located within a few blocks of each other on Park Avenue in
New York City: the former Union Carbide Building at 270 Park Avenue, the hub of
sales and trading operations, and the original Chemical Bank building at 277 Park
Avenue, where most investment banking activity takes place. Asset and wealth
management groups are located at 245 Park Avenue.