JPMorgan Makes $1.36 billion on Visa’s I.P.O

Thanks to Visa’s blockbuster initial public offering last week, JPMorgan Chase won’t have to look very hard to come up with the extra money for its sweetened bid for Bear Stearns. JPMorgan’s $1.36 billion windfall from Visa’s I.P.O. will cover its new $1.2 billion stock deal for Bear, with a little extra to spare. JPMorgan is the largest of six principal bank stockholders of the the card processor, who all reaped big bucks from the offering. The debut was so successful that Visa sold additional shares. “It’s hard to raise that kind of cash in today’s market,” Chip MacDonald, partner in the capital markets group of the law firm Jones Day, told CNN Money. “It gives them more flexibility.” Other banks receiving big windfalls from the I.P.O. include: Bank of America, with $675.3 million; Citigroup, with $324 million; U.S. Bancorp, with $298.7 million, and Wells Fargo, with $295 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.