JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational banking and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest bank in the United States, and the world's sixth largest bank by total assets, with total assets of US$2.6 trillion. It is a major provider of financial services, and according to Forbes magazine is the world's third largest public company based on a composite ranking. The hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is the second largest hedge fund in the United States. The company was formed in 2000, when Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with J.P. Morgan & Co.

The J.P. Morgan brand, historically known as Morgan, is used by the investment banking, asset management, private banking, private wealth management, and treasury & securities services divisions. Fiduciary activity within private banking and private wealth management is done under the aegis of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.-the actual trustee. The Chase brand is used for credit card services in the United States and Canada, the bank's retail banking activities in the United States, and commercial banking. The corporate headquarters is located at 270 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The retail and commercial bank is headquartered in Chase Tower, Chicago Loop, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.JPMorgan Chase & Co. is considered to be a universal bank.

JPMorgan Chase is one of the Big Four banks of the United States, along with Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. According to Bloomberg, as of October 2011, JPMorgan Chase had surpassed Bank of America as the largest U.S. bank by assets.

As of June 2008, the JPMorgan logo used for the company's Investment Banking, Asset Management, and Treasury & Securities Services units
JPMorgan Chase, in its current structure, is the result of the combination of several large U.S. banking companies since 1996, including Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan & Co., Bank One, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. Going back further, its predecessors include major banking firms among which are Chemical Bank, Manufacturers Hanover, First Chicago Bank, National Bank of Detroit, Texas Commerce Bank, Providian Financial and Great Western Bank. Its original predecessor, the Bank of the Manhattan Company, was the second oldest banking corporation in the United States, and the 31st oldest bank in the world, having been established on September 1, 1799 by Aaron Burr.

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"). In the 1980s and early 1990s, Chemical emerged as one of the leaders in the financing of leveraged buyout transactions. In 1984, Chemical launched Chemical Venture Partners to invest in private equity transactions alongside various financial sponsors. By the late 1980s, Chemical developed its reputation for financing buyouts, building a syndicated leveraged finance business and related advisory businesses under the auspices of pioneering investment banker, Jimmy Lee. 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 Bank acquired Chase Manhattan. Although Chemical was the nominal survivor, it took the better-known Chase name. To this day, JPMorgan Chase retains Chemical's pre-1996 stock price history, as well as Chemical's former headquarters at 270 Park Avenue.
The logo used by Chase following the merger with the Manhattan Bank in 1954
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.
According to page 115 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 Manhattan Company, to provide clean water 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 section 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 largest bank in the United States.

Led by David Rockefeller during the 1970s and 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, retaining the Chase name. Before its merger with J.P. Morgan & Co., the new Chase expanded the investment and asset management groups through two acquisitions. In 1999, it acquired San Francisco-based Hambrecht & Quist for $1.35 billion. In April 2000, UK-based Robert Fleming & Co. was purchased by the new Chase Manhattan Bank for $7.7 billion......