A year on from the takeover of Bear Stearns, one of the more obvious legacies of the deal for JP Morgan staff in Europe is an improvement in their office IT systems. While for many of the 1,300 people employed in London by Bear Stearns the takeover led to redundancy, virtually no one in IT lost their jobs as managers took the opportunity to import the smaller bank’s superior technology.

IT staff aside, former Bear Stearns employees are now scattered around JP Morgan's London offices, with concentrated pockets in the bank's prime broking and credit businesses.