Seven Days That Shook the World.

One week in April 1998 rocked the financial world. On 6 April the huge insurance and brokerage firm Travelers Group announced plans to merge with Citicorp, then the second largest bank in the United States. The new company was capitalized with assets of $76 billion and immediately became the largest financial-services company in the world. By including non bank assets, Citicorp-Travelers was valued at $697.5 billion. One week later, on 13 April, the chairman of Banc One, John B. McCoy, announced the merger of his company, valued at $116 billion, with First Chicago NBD Corporation, valued at $115 billion. On the same day, Hugh McColl Jr. of NationsBank engineered a merger with BankAmerica, creating a new conglomerate with deposits of $346 billion, the second largest bank in the United States and the fifth largest in the world. These mergers were part of a complex...