Bank One Corporation
Bank One Corporation was an American bank founded in 1968 and at its peak the sixth-largest bank in the United States. It traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol ONE. The company merged with JPMorgan Chase & Co. on July 1, 2004, with its CEO Jamie Dimon taking the lead at the combined company. The company had its headquarters in the Bank One Plaza (now the Chase Tower) in the Chicago Loop in Chicago, Illinois,[1] now the headquarters of Chase's retail banking division.
Bank One
First Banc Group (1968–1979)
Banc One Corporation (1979–1998)
NYSE: ONE (1979–2004)
Banking
1968
July 1, 2004
Acquired by JPMorgan Chase
Bank One traces its roots to the merger of Illinois based First Chicago NBD, and Ohio-based First Banc Group (later Bank One), a holding company for the City National Bank in Columbus, Ohio.[2]
History[edit]
First Banc Group[edit]
The First Banc Group, Inc. was formed in 1968 as a holding company for City National Bank and was used as a vehicle to acquire other banks. As Ohio began to gradually relax its very restrictive Great Depression era banking laws that had severely restricted bank branching and ownership, City National Bank, through its First Banc Group parent, started to purchase banks outside of its home county. The first acquisition by the new bank holding company was the 1968 acquisition of the Farmers Saving & Trust Company in Mansfield, Ohio.[2] With each acquisition, new member banks kept their name, employees, and management while obtaining new resources from the parent holding company. This is very important when the bank holding company was expanding into primarily rural and extremely conservative markets.
In 1971, First Banc acquired Security Central National in Portsmouth, Ohio.[3]
Initially, Ohio law did not permit bank mergers across county lines but allowed bank holding companies to own multiple banks across the state with some geographical restrictions. The newly acquired banks had to maintain their existing banking charters while each bank had to operate separately. Holding companies also were not allowed to have the word "bank" in their names so the word "banc" was used in its place.