M&As on the Fast Track.

This article reports on financial services industry. It discusses that toxic assets, forced unions, and politics all raise the stakes for recent bank mergers, but some basic principles of M&A are as true for hastily arranged megamergers as they are for traditional acquisitions. It mentions that J. P. Morgan Chase of New York with $2 trillion in assets became the new owner of Washington Mutual and its failed portfolio. Charlotte-based Bank of America has acquired Merrill Lynch even after BofA chief executive officer Ken Lewis said he had his fill of that kind of banking.