J.P. Morgan Reaches Beyond the Wealthy

Executive touted the creation of a massive financial services institution when J.P. Morgan bought out Bank One a year ago, but the low-profile mutual-funds businesses tucked inside the two companies took on as much of a transformation, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Now, a year later, J.P. Morgan - long known as an investment adviser to the wealthy - is building a funds business aimed at a broader swath of investors.

Although the bank has tried to reach out to Main Street in the past decade, most of those efforts have seen limited success. The big New York bank is hoping that Chicago-based Bank One's Midwestern customer base will help jump-start the effort.

"Institutional and high net-worth clients will always be an important part of our franchise, but we want to offer the same capabilities to the broad marketplace," said George Gatch, chief executive of J.P. Morgan's U.S. funds business.

By combining and expanding the Bank One and J.P. Morgan fund businesses, the bank hopes to improve the middling performance of both groups. At the same time, J.P. Morgan is trying to dispel the view that banks just are not good at running mutual funds, the article noted.