Bank One
From The Matrix
Bank One, based in Chicago, Illinois, is the sixth-largest bank in the United States. It trades in the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol ONE.
The bank traces 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 Banc 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. Eventually Banc One Corporation merged with Chicago-based First Chicago NBD Corporation to form Bank One Corporation, and headquarters moved from Columbus to Chicago. Adverse financial results led to the departure of CEO John B. McCoy, whose father and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors, and Jamie Dimon, a former key executive of Citigroup, was brought in to head the company.
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[edit] 2004 Merger controversy
On January 15, 2004, the company announced that it is being bought out by J.P. Morgan Chase in a $58 billion merger. This merger was announced a few months after the proposed merger of Bank of America and FleetBoston banks.
This awoke concerns about too much consolidation of the banking industry. Chicago critics worried about the headquarters move to New York City feared less local charitible giving, higher fees, and less small business lending.
Mega-bank critics contend that, for example in Texas, the fact that one in five dollars put into a bank would be held inside the combined JP Morgan Chase-Bank One creates a potentially dangerous situation for regulators, and can create an oligopoly.
The banks contend that they are not banks at all anymore since the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, but rather financial services companies, and that their market share in Texas in financial services would be more along the order of 3 percent.
