Chase Manhattan Bank (J.P. Morgan Chase)

Notes

Project purpose: Chase agreed to move 5,000 of its employees to MetroTech in 1988 at a cost to the government of $51,000 per job. Even though Chase later announced that many MetroTech jobs will be moved to Tampa, Dallas and Lowell, Mass., the banking giant apparently retained its 1988 benefits by transferring some of its remaining employees to MetroTech from elsewhere in the city. This is the city's largest completed corporate retention deal to date. This deal is also notable for failing to prevent one of the largest series of layoffs in NYC history, by one of the world's largest and most powerful financial corporations.

Corporate Notes: Chase Manhattan merged with the larger Chemical Bank in 1995 but kept the more prestigious Chase name. In September 2000, Chase acquired J.P. Morgan, the investment and asset management firm. JP Morgan Chase collected several million dollars from New York City as part of the failure of the NYSE deal before re-taking control of its property at Broad and Wall Streets. The company also is a major underwriter of bonds for New York City itself and various NYC agencies. In January, 2004, JP Morgan Chase acquired Bank One to become the second largest bank (after Citigroup) in the nation.

Layoffs: Following Chase's acquisition of J.P. Morgan, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. announced in early 2001 that  5,000 jobs would be eliminated, though some analysts think that the number of jobs lost could reach 10,000. In the years following the deal, Chase announced a series of layoffs and relocations that have moved thousands of jobs out of New York City. Starting with 5,720 job cuts in 1995 when Chase merged with Chemical Bank, the company then slashed 2,200 jobs in 1998 as part of a massive restructuring effort and in October 1999 Chase announced 3,500 positions (10% of its workforce in the New York metropolitan area) would be relocated to other states, including many jobs that had been located at MetroTech Center. This announcement represents the largest job exodus in New York City's history.

In June 2000, 11 years after signing its 25-year, $212 million deal, which the city said would prevent the firm from moving jobs to Jersey City, Chase accepted tens of millions of dollars in subsidies to move thousands of employees from lower Manhattan to a new complex -- in Jersey City. Up to 10,000 additional layoffs are expected from JP Morgan Chase's January 2004 acquisition of Bank One, many of them in the New York area. 

According to the New York State Authorities Budget Office's Fiscal Year 2010 PARIS report, JPMorgan Chase has 1,593 employees at its Metro Tech location.

Details about this deal are in our "Know When to Fold `Em" report.