Posted on 01/14/2004 2:19:53 PM PST by PAR35
NEW YORK (Reuters) - J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Inc. has agreed to buy Bank One Corp. for about $60 billion, the Wall Street Journal's online edition said on Wednesday.
Citing a person familiar with the matter, the Journal reported that the purchase is expected to be announced later on Wednesday.
J.P. Morgan spokeswoman Kristin Lemkau and Bank One spokesman Tom Kelly both declined to comment.
A merger would preserve J.P. Morgan's position as the No. 2 U.S. bank by assets, behind Citigroup Inc..
No. 3 Bank of America Corp.'s pending purchase of FleetBoston Financial Corp. would vault that combination past the current J.P. Morgan.
"There is a real logic to it," said Bert Ely, a banking consultant at Ely & Co. in Alexandria, Virginia. "The only thing I would wonder about is might a competing bid come in."
The Journal reported on CNBC, the cable television network, that Bank One shareholders would receive 1.32 J.P. Morgan shares for each Bank One share. That would value Bank One at $51.77 per share, a 14.5 percent premium over Bank One shares' $45.22 closing price on the New York Stock Exchange, up 61 cents.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.excite.com ...
I lament the passing of BOATMENS Bank. The oldest, and IMO the best bank west of the Mississippi. Nations Bank took them over. What an abortion THAT was! Then B of A bought out Nations. Better now, but still not BOATMENS!
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Nope. The Bank backed by the Fed. I figure the Fed would never advertise; The Bank would advertise everywhere.
No more Bank of America, Sun Trust, Chase, Citibank, Wachovia; just The Bank.
And watch - they'll get a cream spot on the Super Bowl.
In this case, good. Bank One is slime. I've banked at B.O. (pun intended), Chase and Citibank, and even the cold-hearted NYC "service" of Chase and Citi were like dealing with mom and dad compared to the crappy "screw you" attitude adopted by my local hometown bank the moment Bank One took it over. It was as if rudeness was literally mandated in the B.O. employee handbook. And let's not even begin to talk about the changes in banking services themselves, all for the benefit of B.O. and to the detriment of the local bank's customer base.
Nasty, NASTY company. Chase can only be an improvement.
Are you sure the number has never stabilized or started growing? A number of new small (or at least comparatively smaller) banks have invaded major cities in the last couple years as they saw openings created by the increasingly impersonal service of the Chases and Citis. And brand new banks and credit unions have been springing up in smaller cities and towns as the conglomerates buy out the established local banks and make them impersonal and customer-hostile. At least three banks have opened in my home town in the last several years, and all are thriving as regular people leave their old banks in droves.
Nations Bank bought B of A, then kept the B of A name.
Nothing that sophisticated. They would receive the payment checks before the deadline, and then hold them and not process them until after the payment deadline, so they could hammer you with a late payment fee. Of course, that is not how they spun it. They said that you wouldn't have any problem with late fees if you mailed the check at least 10 days before the due date.
First USA was a legitimate credit card operation before they were taken over by BankOne. Here is a quote about them:
"During the first half of 1999, the OCC received 2,793 complaints about First USA (about one-fifth of which alleged late posting of payments), more than for the next nine largest bank issuers combined."
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1318/11_53/56952010/p1/article.jhtml?term=
The FDIC figure may include other type institutions. The lower figure I used of "7800" came to me by word of mouth and was a rough approximation. Has been a flurry of merger activity among banks of all sizes of late. Many mergers have not been finalized yet, or will take effect end of Q1.
Don't disagree that many "startups" of spun-off from larger entities. But now some of them are merging...
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