page_title: JPMorgan Chase
section_title: J.P. Morgan & Company
hierarchical_section_title: JPMorgan Chase / History / J.P. Morgan & Company
context_page_description: JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City. JPMorgan Chase is ranked by S&P Global as the largest bank in the United States and the seventh largest bank in the world by total assets, with total assets of US$2.687 trillion. It is also the world's most valuable bank by market capitalization. JPMorgan Chase is incorporated in Delaware.
  As a "Bulge Bracket" bank, it is a major provider of various investment banking and financial services. It is one of America's Big Four banks, along with Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. JPMorgan Chase is considered to be a universal bank and a custodian bank. The J.P. Morgan brand, is used by the investment banking, asset management, private banking, private wealth management, and treasury 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.
context_section_description: The House of Morgan was born out of the partnership of Drexel, Morgan & Co., which in 1895 was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. (see also: J. Pierpont Morgan). 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 the bank’s headquarters for decades. 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 case has never been solved, and was rendered inactive by the FBI in 1940.
  In August 1914, Henry P. Davison, a Morgan partner, made a deal with the Bank of England to make J.P. Morgan & Co. the monopoly underwriter of war bonds for the 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. The company profited from the financing and purchasing activities of the two European governments.
  In the 1930s, J.P. Morgan & Co. and all integrated banking businesses in the United States were required by the provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act to separate their investment banking from their commercial banking operations. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose to operate as a commercial bank.
  In 1935, after being barred from securities business for over a year, the heads of J.P. Morgan spun off its investment-banking operations. Led by J.P. Morgan partners, Henry S. Morgan (son of Jack Morgan and grandson 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 Trust until the 1980s, before migrating back to the use of the J.P. Morgan brand. In 1984, the group purchased the Purdue National Corporation of Lafayette Indiana. In 1988, the company once again began operating exclusively as J.P. Morgan & Co.
caption: The J.P. Morgan & Co. logo before its merger with Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000
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