LaSalle Bank

Founded in 1927 as National Builders Bank of Chicago, it changed its name to LaSalle National Bank in 1940 after a team led by John Nuveen acquired control.[2] In the 1960s LaSalle acquired the Mutual National Bank of Chicago founded by Frank C. Rathje. Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) acquired the bank in 1979. In a merger of co-owned banks, the LaSalle Bank N.A. name was adopted in 1999. It was the largest bank headquartered in Chicago with US$72.2 billion in assets and US$46.8 billion in deposits. LaSalle Bank maintained 146 retail locations and 450 ATMs throughout Chicago and its neighboring suburbs.

LaSalle Bank maintained regional offices in Atlanta, Boca Raton, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Connecticut, Dallas, Denver, Des Moines, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Jersey, New York City, Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, Tampa, Troy, Tustin, and Washington, D.C. Subsidiaries included LaSalle National Leasing Corporation, LaSalle Business Credit, LLC, LaSalle Financial Services Inc, LaSalle ABN Capital Markets LLC, AMO Capital Markets, AMO Commercial Holdings LLC, ABN Commercial Real Estate Holdings LLC. Upon the acquisition Nova Global Markets and Nova Holdings became a part of the official records.

In 1996, ABN AMRO acquired Troy, Michigan-based Standard Federal Bancorporation, the largest savings bank in the Midwest. In 2000, ABN AMRO acquired Michigan National Corporation of Bloomfield Hills and merged it into Standard Federal. The merged bank took the Standard Federal name, but operated under Michigan National's charter. In 2005, it changed its name to LaSalle Bank Midwest N.A. when ABN AMRO consolidated its U.S. commercial banking operations under the LaSalle name.

As of 2007, it was one of the largest banks in the Midwest, with US$43 billion in assets and US$24.1 billion in deposits. It operated 264 branches and 1,000 ATMs in Michigan and Indiana.

On April 23, 2007, an agreement was made to sell LaSalle Bank Corporation to Bank of America for US$21 billion.[3] Bank of America officially took over LaSalle on October 1, 2007.[4] This was a defensive move by ABN AMRO to stave off its own purchase by a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS wanted to merge LaSalle with its Citizens Financial Group division. At one stroke, this made Bank of America the largest bank by deposits in both Chicago and Detroit; Bank of America previously had a minimal presence in Chicago and none at all in Michigan. The investment banking arm was purchased by the third largest bank in Canada by deposits and market capitalization.

Strong connections exist to the Chicago-based PrivateBank as a swath of bankers moved to establish that bank in the mold of the original LaSalle Bank and to avoid the big bank takeover. PrivateBank was later sold to the US division of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). [5][6]