The firm’s early history can be traced to the founding of The Bank of the Manhattan Company in 1799 by Aaron Burr, who transformed a company created to provide clean water to New York City into a bank. According to John Steele Gordon’s An Empire of Wealth, Burr secured a charter by including a clause allowing the company to invest surplus capital in “any lawful enterprise.” J.P. Morgan & Co. was founded in 1871 by J.P. Morgan.
The Chase Manhattan Bank was formed in 1955 from the purchase of Chase National Bank by The Bank of the Manhattan Company. Led by David Rockefeller during the 1970s and 1980s, Chase Manhattan became a leader in syndicated lending, treasury services, credit cards, mortgages, and retail financial services. In 1996, Chase Manhattan was acquired by Chemical Bank, retaining the Chase name.
In 1996, Chemical Bank acquired Chase Manhattan, though Chemical was the nominal survivor, the Chase name was retained. In 2000, JPMorgan Chase was created by the merger of J.P. Morgan & Co. and Chase Manhattan Company. In 2004, JPMorgan Chase merged with Chicago-based Bank One Corp., bringing on Jamie Dimon as president and COO, who later became CEO in December 2005 and chairman in December 2006. JPMorgan Chase acquired Bear Stearns in 2008 for $236 million, a deal engineered by the Federal Reserve to prevent a wider systemic crisis.
In March 2012, JPMorgan Chase experienced a $6 billion loss due to the actions of a trader known as "the London whale," who made large bets on credit default swaps. In September 2008, JPMorgan Chase bought the banking operations of Washington Mutual from the FDIC for $1.836 billion following the seizure of Washington Mutual Bank by the Office of Thrift Supervision. In May 2023, JPMorgan Chase acquired First Republic Bank after the latter faced a crisis, with the deal involving a $10.6 billion payment to the FDIC.
In 2025, JPMorgan Chase unveiled plans for a new 2.5 million square foot headquarters in Canary Wharf, London, costing $3 billion. In November 2025, the company was fined $45 million by Germany’s BaFin for failing to submit suspicious transaction reports. In February 2025, JPMorgan Chase hired Jonathan Slaughter from Goldman Sachs to bolster its business services expansion in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
In 2001, Chase paid over $2 billion in fines and settlements for its role in financing Enron. In 2013, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $13 billion to settle charges related to its sale of mortgage-backed securities. In 2016, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $264 million to settle charges related to a bribery scheme in Hong Kong. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase settled a class-action lawsuit related to Jeffrey Epstein for $290 million.
As of December 2023, the largest shareholder of JPMorgan Chase was The Vanguard Group, holding 9.46% of shares. Institutional investors hold over 70% of the company’s shares.
Jamie Dimon is the current chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, having been CEO since January 2006 and chairman since January 2007. William B. Harrison Jr. served as chairman from 2000 to 2006 and CEO from 2000 to 2005.
JPMorgan Chase maintains an art collection begun in 1959 by David Rockefeller, comprising over 30,000 objects. The collection is managed by a team led by L. K. Erf, director of acquisitions.
[unverified] The article does not contain information on the long-form study of JPMorgan Chase’s history, which belongs to sources beyond the provided corpus.
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