J.P. Morgan & Company[edit]
The J.P. Morgan & Co. logo before its merger with Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000
Influence of J.P. Morgan in Large Corporations, 1914
The J.P. Morgan headquarters in New York City following the September 16, 1920, bomb explosion that took the lives of 38 people and injured over 400 more
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).[20] 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.[21] 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.[22] 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.[23]
Built in 1914, 23 Wall Street was the bank's headquarters for decades.[24] On September 16, 1920, a terrorist bomb exploded in front of the bank, injuring 400 and killing 38.[25] 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.[26]
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.[27] 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.[27] Since the U.S. federal government withdrew from world affairs under successive isolationist Republican administrations in the 1920s, J.P. Morgan & Co. continued playing a major role in global affairs since most European countries still owed war debts.[28]
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.[citation needed]
In 1935, after being barred from the 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.[better source needed] 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.[20] 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.[29]
The Bank began operations in Japan in 1924,[30] in Australia during the later part of the nineteenth century,[31] and in Indonesia during the early 1920s.[32] An office of the Equitable Eastern Banking Corporation (one of J.P. Morgan's predecessors) opened a branch in China in 1921 and Chase National Bank was established there in 1923.[33] The bank has operated in Saudi Arabia[34] and India[35] since the 1930s. Chase Manhattan Bank opened an office in South Korea in 1967.[36] The firm's presence in Greece dates to 1968.[37] An office of JPMorgan was opened in Taiwan in 1970,[38] in Russia (Soviet Union) in 1973,[39] and Nordic operations began during the same year.[40] Operations in Poland began in 1995.[37]
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