The story
The bank was founded in 1922 by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which also started the Amalgamated Bank of New York.
In 1966, a group of private investors led by Eugene P. Heytow bought control of the Chicago bank, which was to remain 5% union-owned.
Amalgamated Trust of Chicago and Amalgamated Bank have agreed that they may both use the registered service mark "Amalgamated Bank." The U.S. Trademark Office objected to this concurrent use as likely to confuse consumers, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ultimately held that the Trademark Office should respect the banks' agreement.
In 2000, Ullico Inc., a union-oriented insurance and investment company, announced that it would buy the bank but withdrew its request the following year.
The parent company for ABOC is Amalgamated Investments Company, a one bank holding company.
Although no longer majority-owned by a union, the bank's board of directors continues to include a number of local and international union representatives and the employees are represented by the Workers United union.
In 2024 ABOC announced plans to expand outside of the Chicago area, starting with St. Louis. Removing "Chicago" from the name when rebranding to ABOC facilitated this expansion.
In January 2025, Robert Wrobel announced his resignation from the CEO role, but retained his functions as Chairman of the Board.
From Wikipedia’s article on Amalgamated Bank of Chicago, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5