Dan Case couldn't do it. Roddy Fleming couldn't do it. Even Neal Garonzik, long-time friend of Chase CEO William Harrison, couldn't do it. Through all the quiet discussions to buy a top investment bank and the change of tack last year to build through smaller acquisitions, vice-chairman Jimmy Lee remained king of Chase's investment banking heap.
Case at Hambrecht&Quist (bought by Chase last December for $1.35 billion), and Fleming at Fleming's (Chase is spending $7.78 billion on that one) have either been subsumed into Lee's world or are leaving. Garonzik, a former equities co-head at Morgan Stanley, joined Chase last summer to spearhead an equities push, but now covers asset management and private banking.
But Wnally Lee has been pushed aside in favour of another friend of Harrison's, GeoV Boisi. Boisi joins after Chase bought the boutique he founded on leaving Goldman Sachs in 1993, the Beacon Group, for about $500 million last month. Chase would have you believe it was a timely decision all round. "This all came about as a result of conversations I've been having with Jimmy for about a year now," says Harrison. "He wanted to be less of a manager of the business and spend more time with clients.