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Long before Washington Mutual’s loans went bad, JPMorgan Chase wanted to buy it.

For years New York executives visited Seattle, size up WaMu’s assets and salivating transversely its West Coast branches. WaMu knew that the East Coast bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, wanted it.

With the Seattle thrift’s failure, it becomes a different notch in Dimon’s empire, which has $1.8 trillion in assets.

Dimon has made a career of acquiring companies, often with flashy deals like the 1998 merger of Travelers Group with Citicorp and this year’s rescue of Bear, Stearns.

He and his team are experts at fixing companies in trouble, granting it often comes at the cost of jobs at the firms acquired.

Early on, Dimon spent more than a decade as the protégé to mythical banker Sandy Weill, building a consumer lending companionship into the financial powerhouse Travelers Group. They grew through acquisitions, chiefly of firms facing hard times.

When Travelers merged with Citicorp, the deal was significant in its size and what it meant to the financial system. That marriage pushed the federal government to dismantling laws from the Depression and earlier that separated traditional banks from securities and insurance firms.

After the merger, Dimon became co-head of Citigroup’session investment bank, Salomon Smith Barney. Not prolix after, he had a falling-out with Weill and was shown the door.

Dimon took time to cast reproach and be with his household, therefore two years later came roaring upper part as CEO of a troubled Bank One in Chicago. He turned the company about in a short time, and in 2004 sold it to JPMorgan.

Now he sits atop the country’s second-largest bank, acquiring what literary works of its largest thrift.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com