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Jamie Dimon is the King of Wall Street.Dimon, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan Chase has emerged at the pinnacle of high finance. The J.P. Morgan boss remains the last man standing in this ongoing war of attrition. Jamie Dimon operates at the crossroads of Main Street, Wall Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue - walking amidst political Kings and lending his ear to the common folk. Certainly, the recent developments are sweet payback for the maniacally driven executive.

James "Jamie" Dimon was born on March 13, 1956 at Queens New York, the grandson of a Greek immigrant. The young man was born into high finance. Father, Theodore worked as a broker for Sanford Weill and built a large enough book of business to uproot the family from working-class Queens to posh Park Avenue Manhattan.

The constant exposure to banking captivated the young Dimon and he was off to Tufts University to complete his economics and biology double major. The scholar then earned his Masters in Business Administration at Harvard.

The precocious, 26 year old Jamie Dimon matriculated from Harvard Business School and was introduced and interviewed by Sandy Weill at American Express, shortly thereafter. The pair would be forever linked as banking giants.

Jamie Dimon and Sandy Weill Build Citigroup

The honeymoon period between Weill and American Express finished unceremoniously, with the blustery dealmaker chafing at the high brow, white shoe culture of the firm. Weill was promptly shown the door and the deposed banker recruited his protégé to 1986 Commercial Credit - a small-time, Baltimore backwater lender. The Batman and Robin duo were to begin at rock bottom and ultimately engineer the world's most dominant financial powerhouse.

The happenings were the perfect fusion of the rock star, free-wheeling 80's, felled institutions that could be bought on the cheap, and Weill - the big picture manager along with Dimon, his number-crunching lieutenant. Weill Sold the Dream and Jamie Dimon made the numbers work. The playbook: borrow exorbitant amounts of money, purchase distressed banks, slash costs, meet debt service; and repeat.

During the late 1980's, the banking marauders purchased Gulf Insurance, A.L. Williams Insurance, and Primerica - parent company of Smith Barney, and Drexel Burnham Lambert's retail brokerage operations.

Weill reacquired his Shearson Lehman brokerage from American Express for $1.2 billion in 1993, took over Travelers Corp with a $4 billion stock deal that year, and bought out Solomon Brothers for $9 billion in 1997. The conglomerate accepted the name Travelers Group as its ultimate moniker.

Still, the aforementioned history of acquisitions read as insignificant footnotes relative to the Weill-Dimon looming megadeal: On October 8, 1998, Travelers Group merged with Citibank to become Citigroup, Incorporated. The $70 billion takeover was the largest deal ever at the time - dwarfing the $42 billion WorldCom - MCI combination.

The conglomerate dominated consumer banking, mutual funds, credit card issuance, mortgages, insurance, trading activity, and investment underwriting. The juggernaut featured a $200 billion market value and carried a staggering $1 Trillion balance sheet. Citigroup executive Jamie Dimon ironically dubbed Citigroup:

"[This is] one of God's great opportunities."

Citigroup Implodes and James Dimon is Exiled.

The father and son relationship became increasingly combative as Dimon, 19 years the junior to Sandy Weill bristled beneath his mentor's towering shadow. Reports detail sordid accounts of emphatic verbal confrontations, sharp quips, and even backlash concerning the proper protocol to dance with the wives of upper-level management. The raging personalities arrived at a crescendo duel for power in the aftermath of the Travelers / Citicorp amalgamation.

Dimon lobbied to be the point man - arguing to be named as Citigroup President and the Chief Executive of the corporate investment bank. However, Weill dismissed his younger counterpart with a vision of his own: the investment banking position was to be held by two other men, Deryck Maughan and Victor Menezes.

Jamie Dimon threw a fit, refused to speak in the presence of Weill, and was emphatically fired in November 1998. The fireworks left Citigroup's former wunderkind in exile. Of course, the proceeding events at Citi, highlighted by any executive with the heart to stand up to Weill being shown the door, effectively established Dimon as a well-intentioned martyr, rather than an entitled brat.

Jamie Dimon landed on his feet at Bank One in 2000.

The freshly minted Chief Executive Officer of Bank One left the rolling dervish, high-stakes New York City acquisition game for the staid role of Middle America banking. Dimon slashed costs, took deposits, and lent money at a profit - apparently gussying the place up as an acquisition minnow target - rather than the dominant financial player of the Free World. Frankly, this was boring.

In 2004, J.P. Morgan Chase purchased Bank One for $58 billion.

Jamie Dimon Returns to Wall Street to Accept the Crown

Jamie Dimon held the Chairman and Chief Executive Title of J.P. Morgan Chase by 2007. However, while Dimon ascended to the head of JP Morgan - Wall Street and the entire financial system of Western Thought, as we knew it disintegrated towards the point of collapse.

Ironically, the very same financial supermarket model that Dimon assisted to prepare stood at the epicenter of the credit crisis and poetic justice stipulated that this architect would be left as the only man standing to save it.

Dimon's Bank One and JP Morgan Religion of conservative commercial banking practices had shunned the complicated structured investment vehicles (SIVs), and collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) that eventually manifested themselves into Duff McDonald's "financial Black Holes." The vehicles were designed to combine numerous lines of credit, divided these pools into "tranches," and sell them off as investment.

The general idea in theory was to spread risk. In practice, banks began to hold the riskiest tranches for themselves and mortgages, credit cards, and car loans had been sliced and diced to the point of almost non-existence. Who owns what? If the asset is not on the balance sheet - does it exist?

Of course, Time exposes all Truths and these quick fix smokescreens decimated Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup. Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase was sitting pretty with the "fortress" balance sheet that Dimon had assembled.

J.P. Morgan Chase was the only institution with the wherewithal to save Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, and the financial machine from its own self.

On March 16, 2008, Ben Bernanke and the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank called on Dimon with a shotgun marriage proposal to buy out Bear Stearns. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson forced Bear to sell out at a miserly $2 per share to JP Morgan and the blueprint of the deal had been telegraphed over the course of 2 days.

The U.S. Government backstopped J.P. Morgan with a $29 billion non-recourse loan to Dimon's bank - essentially shifting the risks from the House of Morgan and onto the U.S. Capitol. Investors stood by in paralysis as an 85 year old pillar of finance collapsed into the fold of Dimon and J.P. Morgan. The shocking account set off another disastrous wave of the credit debacle.

Washington Mutual was the next domino to fall.

Washington Mutual is the largest banking failure in U.S. History.

On September 25, 2008 the Federal Government placed Washington Mutual into receivership and consequently sold off the sixth largest U.S. bank to J.P. Morgan Chase. Dimon had struck again - purchasing $307 billion of assets, $188 billion in deposits, and 2,200 bank branches for a meager $1.9 Billion.

John Pierpont Morgan, the Nation's original de facto Central Banker would be proud.

Jamie Dimon is the King of Wall Street

JP Morgan Chase & Company is the largest bank in the United States with a $77 billion market capitalization. Certainly, winning this war of attrition has not come without costs and numerous toxins festering amidst the Washington Mutual / Bear Stearns wreckage remain to inflict further damage.

According to data complied by Bloomberg's Elizabeth Hester, the corporation has recorded "$33.3 billion in losses, write downs, and credit provisions since the start of the financial crisis." Still, these numbers compare favorably to the $88.3 and $56 billion hits to Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, respectively.

Mighty Citigroup stock has imploded to $1 and a minimal $8 billion market valuation. Of course, Sandy Weill has been long gone to the world of philanthropy - replaced in 2002 by Charles Prince amidst a management shakeup in response to the dot-com meltdown.

Struggling Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley is weak, and Lehman is dead - leaving JP Morgan's Dimon as The Man by default. Of course, legions of noble adversaries are always desperate to storm the Wall Street Throne.

Jamie Dimon is the King of Wall Street - for now.

Jamie Dimon is the King of Wall Street, Sources:
Elizabeth Hester, Dimon Says System can be Saved if Vilification Ends, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awlx29_M0qz4&refer=home

Duff McDonald, The Heist: How Jamie Dimon Put Himself in Position for the Deal of the Century, http://nymag.com/news/features/45320/

Maclean's Magazine, Citicorp-Travelers Merger, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0011617

Andrew Ross Sorkin, JP Morgan Pays $2 a Share for Bear Stearns, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/business/17bear.html