John "Jack" Grundhofer, who as the leader of First Bank System in the 1990s oversaw dozens of acquisitions that turned the Minneapolis company into U.S. Bancorp, one of the nation's largest banks, has died.
Grundhofer, 82, died at his home in Indian Wells, Calif., of natural causes, said his daughter Karen, of Newport Beach, Calif.
In addition to the transformational role he played at a time of major upheaval in the American banking industry, Grundhofer was well-known in the Twin Cities as victim of a kidnapping that, for years, was one of the region's highest-profile unsolved crimes.
In 1990, soon after he first moved to Minneapolis, Grundhofer was abducted at gunpoint from a downtown parking garage. The kidnapper, who at one point demanded a ransom, made him drive to a remote part of Wisconsin and left him there tied up. Grundhofer managed to escape and ran to a nearby farm for help. No one was ever charged in the case.
Earlier that year, Grundhofer had taken over the helm of Minneapolis-based First Bank System, which was on the brink of death, and began a turnaround there through deep cost-cutting. He went on to lead the company that became U.S. Bancorp through more than 35 acquisitions during an era of rapid consolidation.
In 1997, he oversaw the $9 billion acquisition of then Portland, Ore.-based U.S. Bancorp to become the nation's 14th-largest bank. Toward the end of his career, he sold U.S. Bancorp in 2001 to Milwaukee-based Firstar Corp. for $22 billion.
That bank was run then by his younger brother, Jerry. The merged entity kept the U.S. Bancorp name and its Minneapolis headquarters. His brother became CEO of the combined entity.
Grundhofer retired as chairman in 2002. Today, U.S. Bank is the fifth-largest bank in the country.