| Industry | Investment banking |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired by Prudential Financial in 1981 to form Prudential-Bache Securities, later Prudential Securities |
| Predecessor | Leopold Cahn & Co. J.S. Bache & Co. |
| Successor | Prudential-Bache Securities |
| Founded | 1879 |
| Founder(s) | Jules Bache |
| Defunct | 1991 (Prudential ceased usage of Bache name) |
| Headquarters | New York, New York |
| Products | Financial services |
| Parent | Prudential Financial (1981-1991) |
| Subsidiaries | Major Acquisitions:Halsey, Stuart & Co. |
Bache & Company (later known as Bache Halsey Stuart Shields Incorporated) was a securities deim that provided stock brokerage and investment banking services. The firm, which was founded in 1879, was based in New York, New York.
In 1981, Bache was acquired by Prudential Financial to form Prudential-Bache Securities. In 1991, the usage of the Bache name was discontinued and the firm was renamed Prudential Securities, a predecessor of the investment banking operation of Wells Fargo, via its acquisition of Wachovia Securities.
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The firm traces its roots back to 1879 with the founding of Leopold Cahn & Co., a brokerage and investment bank.[1] In 1892, Jules S. Bache, an employee and nephew of Leopold Cahn, reorganized Leopold Cahn & Co. as J.S. Bache & Co. Jules Bache was the grandson of an officer who fought under Napoleon and collected art treasures for The Louvre. Over a fifty-year career, he built the company into one of the most successful and innovative brokerage houses in the United States.
In 1890, the firm expanded to open a second office in New York City and a branch office in Albany, the first branch established by any brokerage firm with a direct wire link to headquarters. Among the early clients of J.S. Bache & Co. were such renowned financial leaders as John D. Rockefeller Sr., Edward H. Harriman, and Jay Gould.
In the tumultuous markets brought on by the Panic of 1907, Bache handled as many as 200,000 shares a day. The firm had by now established itself as a leader in commodities trading.
During the 1920s, the firm became a leader in financing railroads, automobile and mining enterprises. It headed the list of stockholders of the Chicago, Great Western Railway, and acquired control of the Ann Arbor Railroad. The firm was closely identified with the founding and early growth of the Chrysler Corporation.
Bache demonstrated that it would remain a major presence on Wall Street in the Crash of 1929 by reducing the credit extended to the firm’s customers and warning them of the possibility of a reversal. Fortuitously, the firm had none of its own capital invested in the stock market and had no investment trusts to protect during the markets decline. In the dark days of the Bank Holiday in 1933, when cash was virtually unavailable, Bache attracted national attention by supplying currency to customers in New York, Detroit, and other cities.
World War II forced the closing of all of Bache’s overseas offices save for the London office, which remained open throughout the conflict. The firm was among the first to employ women to fill jobs vacated by male employees in the military services. During the war, Bache also introduces the first employee profit-sharing plan in Wall Street history.
Following the death of Jules Bache in 1944, his nephew, Harold L. Bache, took over the running of the business and the name was shortened to Bache & Company. The New York Herald printed “The late Jules Bache will be appreciatively remembered in the financial and business worlds. In both he was a distinguished figure, a man of great acumen and sterling integrity.”
The firm was the first to explore investments in Japan following the war, and one of its early postwar enterprises was the formation of the highly successful Japan Fund, a mutual fund composed exclusively of Japanese securities. In the 1950s, the firm pioneered American stock brokerage expansion abroad.
In 1971, Bache & Company became the second major brokerage firm to go public. In 1974, Bache acquired Halsey, Stuart & Co., a Chicago-based investment banking firm founded by Harold L. Stuart in 1911. The firm's expansion in the 1970s was enhanced by its acquisition of Shields Model Roland.[2] Originally known as Shields & Co., the firm was founded by Paul Shields and merged with Model, Roland & Stone, founded by Leoo Model shortly after World War II.[3]
As the Bache Group celebrated its centennial in 1979, it had $151 million in capital, some 10,000 shareholders, over 6,500 employees including 2,500 account executives. It was involved in practically every facet of the securities business. Its principal operating subsidiary, Bache Halsey Stuart Shields Incorporated, had memberships on 59 different securities, commodities and options exchanges in the United States, Canada and overseas. It maintained 176 offices in 143 cities in 11 countries as well as the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, operated a worldwide communications system that carried more than 50,000 words of financial information daily over 100,000 miles of private wire, and served several hundred thousand clients ranging from individuals with modest sums to invest to large pension funds, insurance companies and other institutional investors.
In 1981 Bache, then known as Bache Halsey Stuart Shields Incorporated, was acquired by Prudential Financial for $385 million. Prudential dropped the usage of the Bache name in 1991, renaming the division Prudential Securities. Later, in 2003, the retail brokerage was combined with that of Wachovia Corporation's to create Wachovia Securities[4]
Today, the Bache name is still used by Bache Commodities, a global commodities and financial derivatives broker owned by Prudential Financial.
In 2011, Bache was acquired by Jefferies & Company from Prudential for $430 million. The primary companies to be acquired include Prudential Bache Commodities LLC, Prudential Bache Securities LLC in the U.S., Bache Commodities Limited in the U.K. and Bache Commodities (Hong Kong) Ltd. in Hong Kong. The acquired businesses will operate globally as Jefferies Bache after the acquisition is completed.[5]
Jefferies Bache will have over 400 employees in New York, Chicago, London, Hong Kong and Hamburg.
Leopold Cahn & Co. (1879-1892) J.S. Bache & Co. (1892-1944) Bache & Co. (1944-19??)
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