Bank One Corporation

"First Liberty Bank" redirects here. It is not to be confused with First Liberty Bank and Trust.

Bank One

Type	Public (Former NYSE symbol:ONE)
Industry	Banking
Fate	Acquired by JPMorgan Chase on July 1, 2004
Successor	JPMorgan Chase
Founded	1863 (1863)
Headquarters	Bank One Plaza (now Chase Tower), Chicago Loop, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Key people	Jamie Dimon, CEO
Products	Financial Services
Website	bankone.com

The Chase Tower (formerly the Bank One Plaza) housed the Bank One headquarters

Bank One Corporation was 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. The company had its headquarters in the Bank One Plaza (now the Chase Tower) in the Chicago Loop in Chicago, Illinois, now the headquarters of Chase's retail banking division.

The bank traces its roots to the Ohio-based First Banc Group, that was formed in 1968 as a holding company for the City National Bank in Columbus, Ohio.

History

History of Banc One Corporation

First Banc Group

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. 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.

Initially Ohio law did not permit bank mergers across county lines, but allowed bank holding companies to own multiple banks across the state. 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.

Expansion in central Ohio by Banc One Corp.

Although Ohio law still had restricted bank mergers outside a certain geographic area, the holding company management decided to unify the marketing efforts of its member banks by having all of its members banks adopt similar names. In October 1979, First Banc Group, Inc. became Banc One Corporation, and each member bank became Bank One followed by the city or the geographic area that the member bank served. For example, City National Bank was renamed Bank One Columbus, Security Central National Bank became Bank One Portsmouth, and Farmers Saving & Trust Company became Bank One Mansfield.

In 1980, Banc One acquired banks in Painesville, Ohio (Lake County National Bank; Bank One Painesville), Akron, Ohio (Firestone Bank; Bank One Akron), and Youngstown, Ohio (Union National Bank; Bank One Youngstown).

Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio was acquired in 1982 and renamed Bank One Dayton. The merger with Winters National Corporation brought into the Bank One organization 42 Winters National Bank & Trust Co. branch offices in the greater Dayton area, a branch in Cincinnati and three offices in Circleville. Also added were 21 Euclid National Bank branch offices in the Cleveland area which were renamed Bank One Cleveland.

Expansion beyond Ohio

With the change in federal and state banking laws in 1985, Banc One began to rapidly expand outside of Ohio. Its first out-of-state acquisition was of Purdue National Bank in Lafayette, Indiana which occurred just after the new laws went into effect. This bank was rename Bank One Lafayette. This merger was quickly followed by the purchase of other small banks in Indiana and Kentucky, the only states that initially allowed bank purchases by Ohio-based banks.

The bank entered Kentucky by acquiring Citizens Union National Bank & Trust Co. of Lexington, Kentucky in 1986. This bank was renamed Bank One Lexington.

Banc One acquired the Merrillville, Indiana based Bank of Indiana and rename it Bank One Merrillville in early 1986. This was quickly followed by acquisitions in Marion, Indiana (First National Bank of Marion; Bank One Marion), Rensselaer, Indiana (Northwest National Bank of Rensselaer; Bank One Rensselaer) and Richmond, Indiana (First National Bank of Richmond; Bank One Richmond).

The first major merger that had an effect on the management of the holding company occurred in 1986 with the acquisition of Indianapolis-based American Fletcher Corporation, a multi-bank holding company, with its lead bank, American Fletcher National Bank & Trust Company, which resulted in giving 20% of the voting stock in the new company to the former managers of American Fletcher and also had Frank E. McKinney, Jr., the head of American Fletcher, replaced John B. McCoy as president of Banc One Corp. and moved McCoy up to chairman of the combined organization. Another change made in the corporate organization was the formation of a two tiered management system with the formation of statewide holding companies that were placed in between the regional member banks and the ultimate Banc One parent holding company. So, in Indiana, American Fletcher Corporation became Indianapolis based Banc One Indiana and all member banks in Indiana, such as Bank One Lafayette, which previously reported directly to the main parent in Columbus, reported to management in Indianapolis instead.

The merger with American Fletcher Corp. also brought along five small banks that American Fletcher had just recently acquired or was in the process of acquiring. These banks included Citizens Northern Bank of Elkhart (Bank One Elkhart), Carmel Bank & Trust Co. (Bank One Carmel), First National Bank & Trust Co. of Crawfordsville (Bank One Crawfordsville), First American National Bank of Plainfield (Bank One Plainfield), and Union Bank & Trust Co. of Franklin (Bank One Franklin). Under Indiana law at that time, American Fletcher was not permitted to merger these banks into its main American Fletcher National Bank.

The First National Bank of Bloomington in Bloomington, Indiana was acquired in 1987. This bank became Bank One Bloomington. With the acquisition of the Bloomington-based bank, Banc One temporarily ceased further acquisitions in the state in Indiana since they had reached that state's cap of percentage of ownership within that state at that time.

Early expansion into Michigan

Banc One expanded into the state of Michigan in late 1986 by acquiring the Citizens State Bank in Sturgis, Michigan and convert it into Bank One Sturgis. Within a few months of the Sturgis acquisition, additional acquisitions were quickly made in East Lansing, Michigan (East Lansing State Bank; Bank One East Lansing), Fenton, Michigan (First National Bank of Fenton; Bank One Fenton) and Ypsilanti, Michigan (National Bank of Ypsilanti; Bank One Ypsilanti) a few months later. After this activity, no further acquisitions were made within the state of Michigan until the First Chicago NBD merger in 1998. At that time, some of these branches were later divested to satisfy anti-trust requirements that would permit the First Chicago NBD merger to proceed.

Expansion into Wisconsin

Banc One's first acquisition in a state that did not share a common border with the state of Ohio occurred in 1987 with the acquisition of Marine Corporation, the third-largest bank holding company in Wisconsin, after First Wisconsin Corporation and Marshall & Ilsley Corporation. The result of this merger brought into organization 21 banks and 76 offices in Wisconsin with Marine Corp. being renamed Banc One Wisconsin Corp. and each of the subsidiary Marine Banks were renamed Bank One along their respective affiliated geographical based name. The lead bank, Marine Bank, N.A., became Bank One Milwaukee. The merger came about Marine was resisting an unwanted acquisition attempt by Marshall & Ilsley initiated in June 1987 which would have resulted in massive firings.

Prior to the unwanted overtures by Marshall & Ilsley, Marine went on a buying spree as soon as Wisconsin and surrounding states started loosening their restrictive bank branching and ownership laws and Marine had recently purchased banks throughout Wisconsin and most recently had purchased a bank with three branch offices in the state of Minnesota and another bank in the state of Illinois just a few months before. In late December 1986, Marine entered the Chicago market by initiating the purchase of the American branch of the Italian bank Banco di Roma, which was rename Marine Bank Chicago. Since Minnesota and Illinois forbid the bank ownership by companies based in Ohio, Marine had to sell those banks before the merger was permitted to proceed. The Minnesota banks were sold to First Bank System while the Chicago bank was sold to a lawyer with the understanding that Banc One wanted the Chicago bank back as soon as the Illinois banking laws would permit ownership by Ohio-based companies, which was December 1990. The lawyer was able to sell the bank back to Banc One within two years at a substantial profit.

Expansion into Texas

Banc One entered the state of Texas in 1989 through the acquisition of a number of failed banks that were seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) as a result of the late 1980s banking crises in Texas that was caused by the defaulting of a large number of real estate and energy sector loans when energy prices dropped and large numbers of people lost their jobs as a result. Although Banc One could obtain existing banks at a discount that was subsidized by the Federal government, they could also be stuck with loans in which borrower could later could not continue to pay on after the collateral dropped further in value.

The first banks to be acquired were 20 banks that were formerly owned by MCorp, which the FDIC had consolidated into a single bank that they named the Deposit Insurance Bridge Bank. The FDIC had seized the banks in March 1989. The failure of 20 of MCorp's 24 banks cost the FDIC $2.8 billion. MCorp was the second largest bank holding company in Texas at the time of its failure. MCorp was formed in 1984 through the merger of Mercantile National Bank of Dallas with Bank of the Southwest of Houston with Mercantile becoming MBank Dallas and Southwest becoming MBank Houston.

After the acquisition, the Deposit Insurance Bridge Bank became Bank One Texas with Banc One Texas formed as the state holding company. Unlike the previous acquisition, Banc One had to bring in managers from Columbus and other parts of the Banc One organization to correct mistakes made by the previous management which led to the insolvency. Laws were changed in Texas that would allow Banc One, and other purchasers of failed banks, to operate a single bank statewide instead of being restricted by narrow geographical regions.

The next acquisition that occurred in Texas was the purchase of the failed Bright Banc Savings a few months later from the Resolution Trust Corporation in 1990. This failed savings and loan association cost the federal government $1.4 billion. The 48 former branches offices were integrated into Bank One Texas, which had 63 branch offices at that time.

In 1992, Banc One acquired Team Bancshares of Dallas, a company that was formed by a private investor group in 1988 to acquired failed and weak Texas banks, for $782 million in Banc One stock. The acquisition of Team Bank brought 56 branches into Banc One Texas, which then had 146, though a few branches needed to be closed because of branch overlaps. After this acquisition, Bank One Texas remained as the next largest bank in the state after NationsBank. The acquisition of Team Bancshares was unusual in Texas during this time period since Team was making a profit at the time of sale.

History of Bank One Corporation

In 1998, Banc One Corporation merged with Chicago-based First Chicago NBD Corporation to form Bank One Corporation, and headquarters moved from Columbus to Chicago. Adverse financial results led to the departure of CEO John B. McCoy, whose father and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors. Jamie Dimon, a former key executive of Citigroup, was brought in to head the company.

Bank One was created in 1998, when Banc One Corporation merged with First Chicago NBD (itself a recent combination of First Chicago Corp. and NBD Bancorp, in 1995). These two large banking companies had themselves been created through the merger of many banks.

Acquisition history

The following is an illustration of the company's major mergers and acquisitions and historical predecessors (this is not a comprehensive list):

Bank One (merged 1998)	Banc One Corp. (merged 1968) City National Bank & Trust Company Farmers Saving & Trust Company First Chicago NBD (merged 1995) First Chicago Corp. (est. 1863) NBD Bancorp. (Formerly National Bank of Detroit) (est. 1933)   Louisiana’s First Commerce Corp.

Some of the banks that were merged into these banks include:

• Bank One
  • Banc One
    • Banc One Ohio (see #Expansion in central Ohio by Banc One Corp. section)
    • Banc One Indiana (see #Expansion beyond Ohio section)
    • Banc One Wisconsin (see #Expansion into Wisconsin section)
    • Banc One Illinois
      • First Illinois Bank Corporation (founded 1905; merged 1992)
      • Marine Corp. of Springfield (founded 1851)
    • Banc One Kentucky
      • Liberty National Bancorp (founded 1854)
    • Banc One Texas
      • MBanks (founded 1918)
        • Alamo National Bank (San Antonio, TX)
      • Benjamin Franklin Saving
      • Team Bank (founded 1873)
    • Banc One West Virginia
      • Security National Bank & Trust (Wheeling, WV)
      • First Huntington National Bank (founded 1872)
    • Banc One Colorado
      • Affiliated Bankshares of Colorado (founded 1874)
    • Banc One Oklahoma
      • Central National Bank (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
      • Liberty Bancorp of Oklahoma (founded 1895)
      • Premier Bancorp of Oklahoma (founded 1882)
    • Banc One Utah
      • Valley Bank and Trust Co. (founded 1948)
    • Banc One Arizona
      • Valley National Bank of Arizona (founded 1899)
    • Banc One Louisiana
      • First National Bank of Commerce (Founded 1971; merged with Bank One 1998)
        • National Bank of Commerce (Formed with assets of CCTSB, 1933; Renamed First National Bank of Commerce, 1971)
          • Canal Commercial Trust and Savings Bank (merger of Canal and Citizens, 1924; Controlled by Chase Bank 1931; failed 1933; assets used to form National Bank of Commerce, 1933)
            • Canal Bank (founded 1831)
            • Citizens Bank (founded 1833)
        • City National Bank of Baton Rouge
        • Rapides Bank & Trust
        • First National Bank of Lafayette
        • First National Bank of Lake Charles
        • Central Bank
        • Pelican Bank
        • Bank of New Orleans (Merged with FNBC, 1982)
        • Ponchatrain State Bank (Failed 1991, Assumed by FNBC)
      • Premier Bank of Louisiana
    • First USA, Inc. (founded 1985, acquired 1997)
  • First Chicago NBD (see First Chicago NBD article)

Private equity

In 2001, Dimon selected former colleague Dick Cashin, from Citicorp Venture Capital to run a new private equity effort within Bank One, One Equity Partners. Dick Cashin is the brother of Steven Cashin, founder and CEO of Pan African Capital Group, based in Washington, D.C.

In 2005, Bank One's private equity affiliate, One Equity Partners was selected to be the exclusive private equity affiliate for the combined firm, prompting the spinout of JPMorgan's private equity affiliate, which is today CCMP Capital.

See also

• Wingspan Bank

External links

• Bank One (Archive)
• Archives of Bank One Annual Reports 2003
• Archives of Banc One and Bank One Annual Reports 1997-2002
• Archives of Banc One and Bank One press releases 1997-2004