JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to add as many as 225 branches this year to its 5,280-store network as it aggressively grows in Florida and California, Charlie Scharf, the chief executive of the New York company's retail financial services, said Tuesday.
JPMorgan Chase may build as many as 2,000 over the next five years as it takes advantage of the momentum from its 2008 purchase of Washington Mutual, which extended its reach into California and Florida, Scharf said in a presentation at the company’s investor day in New York. The company opened 154 branches in 2010.
It generally takes two-and-a-half years for a new branch to break even and three to five years for a new branch to pay back what it cost to open it, he said. The 1,000 branches JPMorgan Chase has opened since 2002 should generate $500 million in pre-tax income by 2013, according to a slide in the presentation.
The company also intends to open 50 more private client offices this year in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Florida. It is recruiting 100 private client investment advisors, 300 bankers and 100 service specialists by year-end as well.
JPMorgan Chase is investing despite higher regulatory costs. It estimates the Durbin rule alone could cost its consumer banking operation more than $1.3 billion of lost revenue.
