Banking

KASB-Atlas Bank was formed at the end of 2008 following a merger between Atlas Bank Limited, KASB Bank & KASB Capital. Atlas Bank was evolved from the acquisition of Dawood Bank Limited by The Atlas Group. The Atlas Group established Atlas Investment Bank in 1990 as a joint venture between Atlas Group and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Japan. Atlas Lease Limited was formed in 1989 as a joint venture between the Atlas Group, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Japan and the National Investment Trust.

This company is now part of Bank of America.

Merrill Lynch was one of the world's largest stock brokerage houses, with offices in 38 countries and territories and total client assets of approximately $1.8 trillion. The company's 2006 revenues were $ 34.6 billion.

The company's logo is the famous bull. The company offers diverse financial services. Of the major investment banks, Merrill is the most active in serving as a brokerage for individual investors.

On September 21, 2008 Morgan Stanley announced that the Federal Reserve had granted it bank holding status, giving it more flexibility to maneuver during the financial crisis gripping the economy. The status also means that it is subject to increased regulatory oversight under the Bank Holding Act.

Founded in 1935, Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York. As one of the top investment banks of it's kind, Morgan has offices in 35 countries with 600 global offices.

Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) is the fourth largest bank in the United States. It is organized into three segments: Community Banking, Wells Fargo Financial and Wholesale Banking, with over 90 percent of its business located in the U.S.

Prudential plc is an international retail financial services group. Its products include retail products, which include annuities, corporate pensions, with-profits and unit-linked bonds, savings and investments, protection, equity release and health insurance, and wholesale products, which include bulk annuities and annuity back-books. The Company’s primary segments are long-term business, banking, and broker-dealer and fund management. In May 2007, the Company completed the sale of Egg Banking plc (Egg) to Citigroup Inc.

Bank of America is the biggest bank in America and one of the ten largest banks in the world. BofA has been the target of much recent criticism for its extensive involvement in the subprime lending markets that precipitated the current recession and for a shotgun merger with Merrill Lynch that critics say damaged the bank's share value.

Nomura Holdings is the parent company of Nomura Securities, Japan's leading investment bank and brokerage house. The company provides a variety of financial services, including equity and bond underwriting, research, private equity investment management, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory services. The company's biggest business segment is the Japanese domestic retail market -- where it provides consulting and brokerage services.

Nomura's asset management segment manages over $225 billion of its clients' assets.

As two NYTimes reporters recently put it, "Goldman is the firm that other Wall Street firms love to hate. It houses some of the world’s biggest private equity and hedge funds. Its investment bankers are the smartest. Its traders, the best. They make the most money on Wall Street, earning the firm the nickname Goldmine Sachs.

Citigroup, operating as Citi, is a major financial services company based in New York City. The company is the most dramatic example of how banking deregulation both succeeded and failed. Formed by the 1998 merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group, at its peak the company employed over 332,000 people around the world and held over 200 million customer accounts in more than 100 countries.

Washington Mutual (WaMu) failed in 2008 and was acquired by JP Morgan Chase and Co for $1.9 billion.

Until then WaMu was the largest thrift in the US, offering consumer and commercial banking services through 2,260 branches on the West Coast as well as New York and Connecticut. WaMu's mortgage business became its achilles heel. Although the bank exited the mortgage business after the housing bubble popped in 2007, it was already too late.