The Texas Commerce Bank (officially Texas Commerce Bank N.A., with its parent

bank holding company A bank holding company is a company that controls one or more banks, but does not necessarily engage in banking itself. The compound bancorp (''banc''/''bank'' + '' corp ration') is often used to refer to these companies as well. United States ...

known as Texas Commerce Bancshares, Inc.) was a Texas-based bank acquired by Chemical Banking Corporation of New York in May 1987. The acquisition of Texas Commerce Bank represented the largest interstate banking merger in history at the time with a purchase price of $1.2 billion. The bank had its headquarters in what is now the JPMorgan Chase Building (formerly Gulf Building) in downtown Houston, Texas. Prior to the merger, interstate banking was illegal in Texas and many other states, which effectively prevented such cross-border mergers. Texas and New York had changed their laws to allow a merger of an in-state bank and an out-of-state bank. Without those changes to the law, the merger between Chemical Bank and Texas Commerce Bank, and later Chase Manhattan Bank would not have been possible. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions

Chemical Bank Chemical Bank was a bank with headquarters in New York City from 1824 until 1996. At the end of 1995, Chemical was the third-largest bank in the U.S., with about $182.9 billion in assets and more than 39,000 employees around the world. Beginning ...

bought

Chase Manhattan Bank JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase Bank or often as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City, that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and fina ...

and then JP Morgan finally changed Texas Commerce to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

History

The Texas Commerce Bank, formerly known as Texas National Bank of Commerce Houston, was a product of the 1964 merger of the National Bank of Commerce and the Texas National Bank. Texas Commerce changed its name to Chase Bank of Texas in 1998 and merged into The Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000. In 1977, Lady Bird (Claudia Taylor) Johnson (wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson) became a director of Texas Commerce Bank and Texas Commerce Bancshares in Houston. Other directors were former President Gerald Ford, former

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Barbara Jordan Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American lawyer, educator, and politician. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African- ...

and the

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oil industrialist

Bill Noël William Douglas Noël (May 11, 1914 – January 9, 1987), was an independent oilman, industrialist, banker, rancher, philanthropist, and civic leader in Odessa, Texas. Background Noël was born in Fort Worth, the son of Earnest Noël and th ...

. At one time

Ken Lay Kenneth Lee Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman who was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Enron. He was heavily involved in the eponymous accounting scandal that unraveled in 2001 into the large ...

of Enron was a director. Past presidents of the bank include Thomas E. Locke of

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Jeb Bush John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, was the second son of former President George H. W. Bush a ...

's career started with an entry-level position in the international division of the Texas Commerce Bank, a job he received through

James A. Baker, III James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...

, a longtime family friend and chairman of the board. Bush assisted in drafting communications for the company's chairman, Ben Love. In November 1977 he was sent to the Venezuelan capital of Caracas to open a new operation for the bank. Bush spent about two years there, working in international finance. He eventually worked for the bank's executive program. The New York City based Chemical Bank acquired Texas Commerce in 1987, and through a series of various mergers over the years, is now part of the present-day JPMorgan Chase. References: Lady Bird Johnson, Director, Texas Commerce Bank
Lady Bird (Claudia Taylor) Johnson , Scholastic

References

{{JPMorgan Chase Defunct banks of the United States JPMorgan Chase Banks established in 1866 Banks disestablished in 1987 1866 establishments in Texas

History

Further reading

References