JPMorgan’s Fall and Revival: An Insider’s Candid Views on the Fall and Rise of America’s Largest Bank
Gabelli100 | Oct 07, 2020 | Gabelli School of Business
By Claire Curry
Financial powerhouse JPMorgan dominated Wall Street from its founding in 1871 through the Gilded Age. Today, S&P Global ranks JPMorgan Chase the largest bank in the U.S. and 7th largest in the world.
In a Gabelli School Centennial Virtual Speaker Series event, co-sponsored by the Museum of American Finance and the CFA Society of New York, Nicholas Sargen, international economist, global money manager, and author, spoke with with financial journalist Consuelo Mack, and shared an inside view of the evolution of JPMorgan through key eras in its history, from the nation’s debt crisis to its merger with Chase Bank.
Drawing from his experience in senior positions Sargen held at JPMorgan in the early ’80s and mid-’90s, he outlined key events that forced the financial services firm to change its business model—also the focus of his book JPMorgan’s Fall and Revival: How the Wave of Consolidation Changed America’s Premier Bank.
Sargen said he would argue that today, JPMorgan is the most influential bank not just in the U.S., but in the world. “Morgan did a lot of things right and it was served by its inherent conservatism,” he said. “That’s why it emerged from the debt crisis in better shape.”
