Coulter to Leave JPMorgan

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Vice Chairman David Coulter will leave the third-biggest U.S. bank, 10 months after he ceded his role as head of its investment banking and asset management units in New York and took a lesser post in Los Angeles.

Coulter, 58, a veteran California banker who headed BankAmerica Corp. in San Francisco before its merger with NationsBank in 1998, became a top executive at JPMorgan Chase in 2002. But he saw his role at the bank begin to ebb with the company’s acquisition of BankOne Corp. last July.

JPMorgan Chase named James Dimon, BankOne’s chief executive, as president and eventual successor to Chief Executive William Harrison.

In September, the bank and Coulter agreed that he would move to Los Angeles and head the company’s West Coast operations and its private equity unit.

“At this stage of my career, I’m not sure I just want to do the same thing I’ve done for last 30 years,” Coulter said Tuesday. “It’s a good time to step back.”