Investment Banking Division at JP Morgan and BofA before 2008?
Before 2008, five investment banks (Bulge Brackets), dominated deal-making and were primarily responsible for M&A, capital raising, and other financial activities. These were Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns. Following the collapse of the latter three in 2008, Merrill Lynch was acquired by BofA, Lehman Brothers' U.S. operations were bought by Barclays, and Bear Stearns was taken over by JPMorgan Chase.
I am interested in knowing whether BofA and JPMorgan Chase had investment bankers or an investment banking division before they acquired Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, respectively. Were they involved in M&A, debt capital markets, equity capital markets, and other related activities before 2008?
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Based on the highest ranked content on WSO, here's what you need to know about the investment banking activities of BofA and JPMorgan Chase before 2008:
Bank of America (BofA)
JPMorgan Chase
Summary
This information highlights the evolution and strategic moves that shaped the investment banking landscape for these institutions before the financial crisis of 2008.
Sources: Investment Banking Evolution, Bank of America Merrill Lynch to drop Merrill Lynch name from Investment Bank, Why so serious?, 8 Year Anniversary, 2020s Investment Banking Outlook
This thing is mad annoying. We all have ChatGPT and could use it to look up questions if we wanted to.
Look up "Banc of America Securities" (yes with a C)
I asked around and got told that Goldman, MS and Lehman divided all the blue chip corporate clients. Merrill was an also-ran trying its best to move up. Merrill’s special power was branch offices all over US. Local officials needing to issue tax exempt debt called their local brokers who were the only Wall Street guys they knew. Likewise, small businesses looking to go public turned to Merrill. It was a book of business Goldman, MS and Lehman couldn’t touch.
Bear Stearns was stronger at sales and trading than corporation finance. My sources all had to think if Bear even did Corp fin. Apparently it did but no one recalled who the clients were.
In the 80s, the Godzilla firm was Drexel. They had the LBO business to themselves in part because Goldman, MS and Lehman didn’t want to offend their blue chip clients by financing hostile takeovers. Drexel ran its LBO-junk bond business out of Beverly Hills so as to keep away from HQ in NYC. Mike Milken and his top guys all got super rich. (Secretaries were getting paid $300k.)
No firm doing commercial banking mattered. Read Liar’s Poker. If you worked at a firm that cashed checks and accepted deposits of loose change from little kids you were a loser.
Glass steagall act also made commercial and investment banking under one umbrella impossible until it was repealed in the 90s. It’s why JPM in the 1930s separated and Morgan Stanley was created as the IB firm but JPM focussed on commercial banking
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