Fortress JPMorgan: Jamie Dimon’s monument to American finance
The bank’s new Manhattan headquarters is a physical manifestation of its unparalleled position
Joshua Franklin in New York
© Olga Ginzburg/FTJamie Dimon likes to talk about JPMorgan Chase’s “fortress balance sheet”.
With the bank’s new New York headquarters, he has built it an actual fortress.
During his 19 years as chief executive, Dimon has constructed a lender that towers above its rivals.
Its $800bn market capitalisation equals that of Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup combined.
Where competitors have stumbled, JPMorgan is expanding on Main Street and Wall Street.
Wells only recently escaped an asset cap, Citi is midway through restructuring and Goldman Sachs has retreated from consumer banking.
So when the first JPMorgan employees walk through the doors of 270 Park Avenue this month, their entrance into a 60-storey, 2.5mn square-foot skyscraper will symbolise more than a mere office move for the bank.
JPMorgan’s new headquarters looms above midtown Manhattan neighbours in the same way the bank does over the US financial system.
Employees past and present talk about 270 Park as a “monument” to Dimon’s time as CEO.
The $3bn steel and glass building has been more than seven years in the making.
It features biometric scanners to enter the building, a 19-restaurant food court with kitchen-to-desk delivery — and more importantly the ability to withstand days-long citywide power outages and droughts.
JPMorgan said “we upgrade and build great facilities for our employees around the world.
It’s a show of respect”.
Building a headquarters that, in Dimon’s words, is a “beautiful physical manifestation” of his company is in keeping with the earliest Wall Street traditions.
JPMorgan’s first headquarters in New York’s downtown financial district at 23 Wall Street famously had a Louis XV chandelier with 1,900 crystal pieces in its lobby.
The bank moved uptown to 270 Park Avenue a quarter of a century ago, after JPMorgan merged with Chase Manhattan.
The previous headquarters was demolished in 2021 to make room for the new building.
JPMorgan’s early 20th century Manhattan home on the south-east corner of Wall and Broad Streets. It was demolished in 1913 © Detroit Publishing Company/Interim Archives/Getty ImagesDimon joined after the move to 270 Park, joining when JPMorgan bought the lender he was running, Bank One, in 2004.
It was from that site that he grew JPMorgan into a behemoth with $4tn in assets.
JPMorgan is twice as profitable as Bank of America, its nearest competitor in US retail banking and earns as much in three months as Goldman Sachs does in a full year.
JPMorgan last year made more than $1bn a week in profits for the first time.
It is consistently the largest earner in Wall Street investment banking and Main Street retail banking.
In the process, Dimon has become a quasi-spokesperson for Wall Street to the rest of the country.
At 1,388 feet, the bank’s new Park Avenue home, designed by Foster + Partners, is almost twice the height of the previous building and almost as tall as the Empire State Building.
Its narrowing design as it rises is meant to symbolise continuous growth.
The first wave of employees will move in on August 25.
Some jokingly refer to themselves as guinea pigs and are braced for early kinks; the features are sufficient to ensure they need never leave.
The new building towers above its midtown neighbours © Olga Ginzburg/FTAs well as the food court curated by Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer, there is a dedicated pub called Morgan’s, a fully functioning medical office, full-service fitness centre (though, employees grumble, some access comes at additional cost), and a year-round store selling JPMorgan merchandise.
Then there is the artificial intelligence technology circadian rhythm lighting that adjusts throughout the day, and workspaces are pumped with three times the amount of normal fresh air.
“The joke is it’s like a Vegas casino.
It keeps us there all day,” said one JPMorgan banker.
Sharing fingerprints with the bank is optional.
JPMorgan has said it needs to upgrade from its last headquarters, which was built in the 1950s for 3,500 people and was being used by more than 6,000 workers.
The new building has enough backup electricity and supply of water for several days, said people familiar with the matter.
Eventually it will house 10,000 of the bank’s global staff of 317,000.
But with more than 17,500 employees across its corporate offices in Manhattan, some employees have been notified they do not have a desk in the new headquarters and will be working out of one of the other JPMorgan offices in New York.
Among the unlucky ones are the support staff for teams that generate revenues for the bank.
They will still have access to the building’s amenities.
“There are a lot of disappointed people,” said one JPMorgan employee.
The first wave of JPMorgan staff will move in on August 25 © Olga Ginzburg/FTJPMorgan is renovating its midtown Manhattan properties too.
Offices at 383 Madison Avenue are getting a facelift, and the bank is considering adding hotel rooms at the 520,000 square-foot 250 Park Avenue building it acquired last year, according to people familiar with the matter but not confirmed by the bank.
There, rooms in the 1920s address would be for out of town employees visiting the city; the thinking is that the move would ultimately save costs because it would not have to spend on hotels, the people said.
Extravagant corporate buildings can be a red flag for hubris.
Bear Stearns moved into a new office seven years before its rescue — by JPMorgan — in the early months of the 2008 financial crisis.
That office, 383 Madison, has been JPMorgan’s temporary home during construction.
When asked in 2018 at the project’s outset about its triumphal tone, Dimon responded with his characteristic folksy humour.
“That worries me too actually,” he joked.
“New headquarters’ building, usually you should short the stock at that point.”
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