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Jp Morgan And The Octagon

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by Felix Salmon
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Jun 16 2008 12:00am EDT

JP Morgan and the Octagon

When Chase Manhattan bought JP Morgan in 2000, it knew it was acquiring a valuable brand, but it also wanted to make its presence felt. So the name of the new bank became the unwieldy JP Morgan Chase, and Chase's octagon logo was slapped onto everything: the combined bank, the retail bank, even the investment banking subsidiary, which retained the pure JP Morgan name.

It's taken a while, but it seems that Chase has finally vanquished its lingering insecurity complex. JP Morgan is getting its old logo back, with minor tweaks, and losing the octagon. My feeling is that the final decision to do this took place after the acquisition of Bear Stearns, at which point the percentage of JP Morgan bankers who actually worked at the original, taken-over JP Morgan must have been reduced to single digits. They're no threat any more, they can have their logo back now.

Or maybe Chase just felt that JP Morgan no longer needed an octagonal logo, now it's moving into an octagonal building.

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