Walking along Wall Street, Clayton Rose bumped into a former colleague. It was the day in September last year that Chase and JP Morgan announced their $35 billion merger. Rose, JP Morgan's global investment banking head, was offered congratulations. "Well, we'll see," was all he could muster in reply.
He wasn't alone in his doubts. Many of his colleagues shared this latent resentment at being taken over by what they saw as the commercial bankers from Chase.
A year later, most of the senior executives from the old JP are no longer with the bank. Former CEO Sandy Warner, head of investment banking Clayton Rose and head of asset management Ramon De Oliveira are just three examples, and only two of Morgan's executives sit on the combined bank's board.
Some of the biggest revenue producers have also left, and the two businesses Chase lacked and allegedly bought Morgan for - equities and M&A - are both run by Chase executives.
Two separate factors have helped to obscure these post-merger developments. First, this has been the year where a big balance sheet and a big presence in loans and bonds has been crucial to bank profitability, and JPMorgan Chase has a formidable presence across the board.