J.P. Morgan

J.P. Morgan Profile & Stats

The international banking powerhouse, J.P. Morgan Investment Bank, is a subsidiary of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, one of the oldest financial services firms in the world. It can trace its ancestry back to 1838 when an American by the name of George Peabody established a merchant bank in London, humbly designating it George Peabody & Co. In 1854, Junius S. Morgan joined as partner, and the firm became known as J.S. Morgan & Company. Seven years on, Junius’s son, J. Pierpont, established J.P. Morgan & Company: a New York sales office for securities, underwritten by his father. Operating both sides of the Atlantic, the Morgans brought capital from Europe that was crucial to U.S. growth. In 1895, five years after Junius’s death, J. Pierpont consolidated the family businesses under the J.P. Morgan name.

A Bit of Background

The ‘House of Morgan’, as it came to be known, grew in leaps and bounds and secured some of the most lucrative deals around: it financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation; supplied the United States’ government millions in gold to float a bond issue and restore the treasury surplus; and at the turn of the 19th century financed and secured a spot as a dominant railroad transporter in the US.

J.P. Morgan’s growth continued unimpeded until the enactment of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933. This edict imposed barriers between commercial and investment banking, triggering deep structural changes within J.P. Morgan and prompting several of its partners to jump ship to form another investment banking giant: Morgan Stanley.

J.P. Morgan Chase, in its current structure, is the result of a combination of several large U.S. banking companies, formed over the last decade. When the world was hit by the 2008 recession, J.P. Morgan played a significant role in helping to manage the crisis by the acquisition of global investment bank Bear Stearns and has come through almost unscathed – in 2011 the firm has recorded a 47% profit jump for the full-year of $17.4bn.


A Closer Look at Divisions & Departments

Today, J.P. Morgan is a diversified financial services firm and the J.P. Morgan brand encompasses six key business areas: investment banking, worldwide securities services, private banking, asset management, one equity partners and private client services.

February 2005 brought big news on the Ibanking side: J.P. Morgan combined its UK investment banking business with London-based Cazenove Group’s investment bank to create a jointly owned and highly respected company – J.P. Morgan Cazenove, an entity that provides investment banking advice and services to clients in the UK and Ireland.

The investment banking division at J.P. Morgan is divided by teams: industry, M&A and capital markets. Industry teams include consumer health care and retail, diversified industries and transportation, natural resources, financial institutions, metals and mining, real estate and technology, media and telecommunications.

The firm’s research unit is divided into three main groups: equity, economics and global markets. J.P. Morgan’s equity research unit, which has approximately 600 equity analysts, operates primarily out of North America and Europe, but also has significant operations in Asia. Economics offers views on markets around the globe, and global markets covers fixed income, credit, derivatives, emerging markets, FX, structured finance, technical and bond index research.

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